Enjoying My Flaws

Photo by true2source

I have strawberries.

There’s a medical term for it, but I don’t remember it. [added: cherry angioma]  All I remember is that my lovers have always referred to them as “strawberries”—either with great fascination or great disdain and precious little in between.

They’re tiny scarlet freckles, no larger than the size of a pinhead, and I have probably a dozen hidden on my body. The doctor who laser-smoothed my childhood dog-bite scar offered to zap them off for me, but they don’t bother me and I’ve never held any animosity toward them, unlike with the scar.

When I was a tiny girl, I was always intrigued with them on the other women in my family and somehow understood them to be a sign of womanhood and would say that I would have them, too, when I became a woman. And I do. But getting dressed in front of the mirror and not yet dressed, I noticed one of the cherry-red flecks and distinctly heard the word INCLUSIONS. Not occlusions, as in a blockage, but inclusions. Like with my favorite quartz….

Thanks for reading!  This article in included in its entirety in The Long-Awaited, Honest-to-God Secret to Being Happy.