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My special spot

 

This piece was one written during my junior year for English 325. The prompt was to write about a preoccupation you have. I remember the assignment frustrating me since I had nothing specific to write about that and I decided to go with the out of the box approach taken in my earlier english class. My preoccupation was going to be making sure to hide a birthmark on the side of my head.

 

This piece was particularly difficult to write because my preoccupation was something I had never told anyone I did on purpose. As a result, the tone of the paper came off as honest, personally reflective on the past and a bit conversation as if I was telling someone about it for the first time. This piece of writing allowed me to explore writing about more personal experiences. 

My Special Spot

 

You can’t help what you’re born with. Literally, I can’t help that I have brown eyes and kind of chubby fingers. I can’t control the fact that the genes I was born with decided I would grow to 5 feet 7 inches or that I would have a beautiful or hideous, depending on my state of mind, thumb-print sized birthmark on the left side of my head. Those are some of the qualities I was born with, I couldn’t blame my parents or doctors or anyone for the giant brown birthmark, for better or worse it was there.

 

If you look at any one of my baby pictures, there it is, this giant brown spot on a little, innocent baby head. No hair or freckles or other markings except for that one, but what could I do? I was a baby! I didn’t know what I looked like and I certainly didn’t have enough hair to cover it up. So the pictures came out as they did and are framed in my living room with the birthmark out there for the world to see.

 

When you are really little, stuff like a weird mark on your body isn’t that important. I am pretty sure nobody in my Kindergarten class noticed or cared that I had a spot on my head. But, kids get older and meaner. I’ll never forget this bus ride in 5th grade when a kid who lived on my block finally noticed my birthmark. I don’t remember how I was wearing my hair that day but I was exposed, literally. The kid actually pointed at my head and yelled, “oh wow look at the mole on moley girl! She has a giant mole!” First of all, mole is ranked #1 on my list of most piercing words- I hate it. It even sounds ugly. Words he chose aside, I was 10 years old and became the center of the bus ride jokes home. It didn’t last just that day either. I’d get on and off the bus and the kids would keep talking about moles, just loud enough for me to hear and know that they were referring to mine. Kids are mean.

 

Up until then I never really thought too much about my birthmark. It didn’t make me feel ugly or weird or different, it was kind of just, ya know, there. But being called “moley girl” for almost a year changed everything. I hated that mark. I hated that it was so big and dark that no makeup would ever cover it. I hated that every time I was in for a check up, the doctor needed to take out a measuring tape (yes, an actual measuring tape) and record if the size changed at all in case it became cancerous. I began to question why the world cursed me with this ugly giant while the rest of my family and friends went untouched? I began to feel awful and to be a growing girl and insecure about something literally out of your control is a horrible, stomach twisting, terrible feeling.

 

So then I created an obsession with my hair. I have lots of little pet peeves. I get frustrated when people don’t say thank you when I hold the door for them, or I will stop walking at any cost to fix when my sock goes too low below my ankle. But there will never be an obsession close to that of my hair and not in the “it has to look nice” kind of a way. No matter how I feel about it, my birthmark is in a very peculiar spot on my head. It is right on my hairline on the left, which means that for most of my life it has been coverable, manageable. In fact, this piece of writing itself will probably be a complete surprise to almost all of my friends, since they probably have never seen my birthmark, mainly because I haven’t let them.

 

Pretty much since I entered middle school I have covered my birthmark. I even have had my hair parted more to the right so I have extra hair on my left to swoop across and cover it up. Constantly feeling my hair and checking it is hiding my spot. If my hair is casually straight and down, you’d never see it. I have mastered putting a piece of hair behind my ears and making sure it lays perfectly to tuck away my mark. The most difficult has been with sports. As any girl would know, it is so much easier to wear a headband and play sports. When you start to sweat, the little small pieces of hair, also know as “flyaways”, start coming out and become uncontrollable. Through seven years of sports most of my teammates wore headbands to control those pesky flyaway’s- but I didn’t. Not one game, ever. I preferred to try and hide my insecurity and ugliness rather than get a headband that would make playing slightly easier. But really, ponytails were the most difficult hairdo to manage for me. Specifically because if I pulled all my hair back into it, my spot would be bare for everyone to notice and laugh at! The fear of being made fun or even noticed like on the bus bubbled inside me. So I spent hours in front of my mirror, putting my hair back so I could play, but I pulled out enough hair to cover my spot but not be too horrible when I played. So for the next 7 years and even now at the gym, my hair will be up but remains a safety shield for me, a barrier between the world’s eyes and my ugly little secret spot.

 

When I really perfected the hair compulsion, I began to feel more comfortable. People couldn’t make fun of what they couldn’t see, and nobody really noticed that I was trying to cover anything up, it just became how I wore my hair. Then came my Bat Mitzvah where we had a hairstylist come to my house and curl me, my 2 sisters and mom’s hair. I had spent three years preparing for this day. Three years of practicing a new language, which I was so nervous to say in front of a temple full of people that I went to tutoring sessions on Friday nights to work on my Hebrew. I spent months finding a dress and venue and picking a theme for the special night. It was supposed to be a day for and about me. For the years of hard work to be appreciated, to become an adult in front of my family and friends, but instead of focusing on what a joyous day it would be, I was worried about my birthmark.

 

On a day when I should have felt beautiful when all eyes were on me, all I felt was embarrassed and on the brink of tears. The hairstylist curled my hair perfectly but everyone thought it should be half up and half down, which would mean my birthmark would be right out in the open. I let her make the changes and move my hair, as I was too shy to say something but quickly ran upstairs to look in the mirror. My two oldest sisters came inside to help with my makeup and saw the look on my face. Did they see it? The years of self-consciousness that built up inside of me as the moley girl. Did they notice that for the first time in so long they saw what I was covering up and realized that it was more than just a birthmark for me? Whatever they saw, they came to my rescue and fixed my hair so I was perfect for the night, but not without asking if I felt better that my birthmark wasn’t showing. It was the first time in my entire life anyone ever asked me about it. I think I shrugged yes and just shut my eyes so they could put on my makeup, but even though that moment may have been minor and is long gone- it hasn’t left me.

 

My sisters didn’t care that I had a birthmark that made me different. They loved me! They may have moved my hair that night so I could feel better, but I am positive that they did it so I would feel beautiful, not because I didn’t look it. So now what? I am 20 years old and have come a long way since that bus ride in 5th grade, but my birthmark hasn’t. Over this past summer during one of my check ups I had my mark looked at. While it is not cancerous, it still feels cancerous to my mental outlook. I can’t even count the number of times that I have imagined what it would be like to not have this mark. I have thought of all these hair dues and headbands I could have, the normalcy I would feel if I didn’t have to worry about covering it up with my hair. But my doctor told me the answer I never thought would come, and it changed everything. I could get the birthmark removed. It could be off my head forever. But, I’d have to have a 3-inch football shaped scar in the place instead and no plastic surgery could make it go away.

 

Maybe it was the fact that I never imagined finding the strength to actually ask my mom if I could see a doctor about it or maybe it was the fact that while I didn’t like my birthmark, I really didn’t like the idea of a scar shaped as a football on my head, but I walked right out of the office and had my wake up call. This wasn’t just a birthmark or a spot or a mole (ugh) but it was also a beauty mark and I needed that appointment and moment with my sisters to help me see it that way too. If I had my mark removed, the teasing memory wouldn’t go away. If I had it removed, I wouldn’t even look like that was me in my baby pictures. Like it or not, the spot is mine. I had let so many people tell me it was unattractive or make me feel weird but I never realized the other side. Ten years later, the beauty mark represents that I made it past those mean bullies on the bus and that no mark on my face has stopped friends from liking me or boys from dating me or even hairstylists from washing or cutting my hair. It is just something I was or sometimes am insecure about, just like everyone is about a part of his or her body, so I guess that makes me more normal than I thought.

 

 

 

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