I Don’t Love My Stretch Marks, Yet…
September 21, 2020
I don’t stare and marvel at my changing body. I just don’t have capacity for it. I feel like I simply exist day-to-day to find something, without a waistband, to hold myself together.
But then there’s these rare moments.
Like this one gifted to me because my husband took a photo.
A rare moment where I can pause.
Soak it in. Remember.
I don’t love my stretch marks, yet they hold a certain string of memories.
You see, each of these lines are over a decade old.
Some, from my growth.
Some, brought by Maya.
A few brought by Jemma.
Many more brought by Boden.
To imagine that my own expansion, and then her siblings 10,12,14 years ago, made way.
Created space.
For her.
She has not brought me more lines, yet.
She has simply grown into a space, left there by us.
It took me 8 years of crying grief and shame to accept these marks, these expansions.
Yet now, I am grateful.
Because while pregnancy this time has been one of my harder seasons, between illness and depression, I still carry this space, these pauses… to marvel.
For how grief turned to gratefulness.
For how a body is woven through experience.
For how a space was made, expanded upon and shared.
By 4 people.
Waiting on one.
