#thisishowicope with the marks on my face
This is going to be the first time I have ever really sat down and talked about my birthmarks. I’ll be honest and say that whoever you are, I want you to read this.
I will never, ever, ever look like the normal that the world wants me to be, and it’s taken me about 23 years to really accept that. I remember the days when girls in high school or in college wore makeup and I had to search for YouTube makeup tutorials with the words, “Makeup for girls with birthmarks and glasses”. Nothing ever came up and that was just way too hard to accept. I remember wanting the full-coverage HD foundation (I didn’t know that’s what it was called then) because all I wanted to do was hide my birthmarks. It was so hard to accept that I will always have the green stuff on my face. I even learned about concealer and the frustrations that came with trying to cover up my marks to no avail. There will always be whispers and there will always be people blatantly staring at me, kids pointing at me and whispering to their mothers. It was always so difficult to witness, even more heart-breaking to feel.
This has to be said, and I have to admit that I am on the verge of tears knowing I plan to post this because I want to let the world know.
Even now as a body positive advocate, a woman who has promised within herself that she will fight to make every woman or man believe that she or he has the right to love herself, it’s sometimes really, really difficult to look at my marks. It gets really tough. Sometimes I would be out and I’d be so happy and proud to see fat girls like me so comfortable in their skin. I’d see them in shorts, in sleeveless tops, in dresses, things I myself had the difficulty leaving the house in once upon a time. I look at them and they’re happy and sometimes I get the urge to go up to them just to tell them that they’re beautiful. [[Update: I took a break from writing this and spent about five minutes crying in the bathroom. I say this to prove the reality of this issue.]] But then as I stare at them and realize how happy they are, there are days when I suddenly feel pity. Not towards them, but towards me. I start to think, “Yeah, great. We’re both fat. But she will now be more accepted by the world than it will ever accept me because I’m still the girl with the green stuff on her face.” How often does this happen? I was literally standing among the 5pm crowd of commuters at the train station yesterday and thinking this as I stared at a fat woman in a short dress.
There are two memories about my birthmarks that will forever stay ingrained in my mind: One, when I was a pre-teen, I always looked forward to the day that I would turn 18. A dermatologist once told me that when I turn 18, I would be eligible to get the marks off of my face. Clean slate. Gosh, I type this now and I remember the times when people would ask me about my birthmarks and my defense would automatically be, “Oh, it’s a birthmark. But that’s okay, a doctor is going to get it off me using a laser when I turn 18.” Can you imagine – girl DEFENDING the marks on her face?
That’s another thing. It wasn’t until I became a young adult that, when I would tell stories about people asking me about my birthmarks, did I think it was rude. You have to understand; I have been on this earth for 23 years and practically every time I have met a person, I have endured the blatant stares on my marks (No, not my face. As in my birthmarks, specifically.) and I have answered about 500, “What’s that on your face?” and about 50, “Was your face burned?” I always let them pass and answered them respectfully because they always seemed genuinely curious. I didn’t know any better that the questions were so rude.
Which leads me to my second memory: I was in first year high school when a friend told me that a girl we knew had asked her dad who was a doctor, “She has all this stuff on her face. What’s wrong with her?” Of course I wasn’t there to have witnessed it and to this day I don’t know if it really happened. But that memory of it, the very possibility of friends asking doctors questions like that, it broke me to pieces. I felt like an experiment, I felt completely isolated, I felt lost. It’s 10 years later, turning into a body positive advocate later, and it still causes a slight sting to my heart.
I will never be the kind of normal that the world would want me to be. I have been called ugly. As in ugly. As in, “Oh, Elora? She’s nice, but she’s ugly.” For a time, I couldn’t blame them because I agreed. There are days, my friend. There are days when I stare at myself in the mirror just before I put on my makeup and actually say to my reflection, “God, you’re ugly. You’re so ugly.” My favorite part, “You will never find somebody who will accept you with a face like that.” (Because literally, a guy once “broke up with me” and then texted my friends, “You’re pretty, the other one is cute, Elora’s ugly.”)
I will never be the kind of normal that the world would want me to be. But then, there are days when I just would hate myself for ever doubting who I am. Because at 23 years old, no matter how shitty I feel about them on some days, my birthmark, the dark green mass on my forehead and the streaks on my right cheek, they are what make me, me. They’re the ones that have made an old woman in the train come up to me and said, “Hija, pareho kayo ng anak ko. May ganyan din siya sa mukha. Ang ganda, ganda mo.” They’re the ones who got me on an amazing campaign (#IAMFLAWSOME) that featured women and their insecurities. Last year? A girl stared at my face, her eyes travelling over my marks, and said to me, “You are so beautiful. I cannot get over how beautiful you are.” I wanted to cry [[LOL, I’m crying again now.]]
I used to pray that when I have kids, I hoped they don’t get what I got. I hated my birthmarks that much. I once cried over old photo albums because I saw how prominent my marks were on me as a toddler. But today? Today, I find myself almost hoping my future children will have something as unique as the marks on my face. My birthmarks together with my body; they have taught me the lesson that I am as beautiful as I SAY AND THINK I am and it doesn’t matter what the other people say. I have every right to feel confident in my skin because I should be. This is the skin I was born in and as a God-fearing lady, who am I to question Him?
Then there are days like yesterday when a good friend like Anj Angeles sends me photos she took from a shoot we did over the weekend… and I can’t believe how beautiful I am and I have never been so grateful for the body and the skin that my God has blessed me with.
I will never be the kind of normal that the world wants me to be and I don’t care.
P.S. Turns out I did learn how to put on makeup. I just learned not to hide my marks and just accept them as they are instead. My mom even told me they add more depth to my eyes.
