Si's Life: My Best Feature

"Don't get caught up in the 'look' thing. Sometimes, we as men and women, the first thing that attracts us to someone is their physical appearance, and that's not always a good thing because what's good on the outside is not always good on the inside." - Keith Sweat

In grade school we were taught to never judge a book by its cover. What our teachers had failed to mention about this lesson is that it is much easier said than done. 

Take a look at the photo above. At first glance most people would cringe and say something like ewwww that's so disgusting and gnarly looking or WTF is that THING? It definitely isn't something people would describe as beautiful. But what is it exactly?

That  gnarly looking "thing" is my scar from my second kidney transplant (bet you guys didn't guess that). The transplant itself was a huge success however due to different techniques used by different surgeons the scar didn't end up disappearing and ended up like this. For the longest time I couldn't stand to look at it and was terribly embarrassed by it. Hiding it with clothes was easy enough but not enough for me to forget it was there. I guess the main reason I was so ashamed of it was because I was afraid what other people would think of it. I thought that people would find me repulsive and that I would probably never meet someone. 

However over time I begun to feel better both physically and mentally. This second kidney transplant had truly worked and I felt better than ever. Now every time I look at my scar, I think about the obstacles that I had gone through to get to where I am today and the challenges I had to face for a second time. It also serves as a symbol of strength and to never take anything for granted. A couple years ago if someone asked me to show them my scar I would probably have said no and ran away but ask me today I would proudly show it to anyone. It's easy to judge based on outward appearances because we have easy access to it. But outward appearances don't tell us anything about the person themselves. We all have flaws about ourselves both outward and inward that we don't necessarily like about ourselves, the important thing is to accept those flaws and turn them into something positive. Besides if everyone was perfect how boring would the world be?