This year I go deeper into a life-long journey of healing a chronic, debilitating and life-altering skin condition.
My skin is fragile, sensitive and reactive. I have to watch what I eat, what I wear, the air around me… and often times short of hiding my skin’s appearance, I often wish I could remove it all, replace it with another skin, some skin that didn’t hold me back or make me feel so different.
But unlike human relationships where we can choose to breakup, cut ties, and move on, this is the skin I have for life. I can hope for healing, pray for remission, seek treatment and even hide the reality of my skin’s appearance, but ultimately my solace has come through acceptance and forgiveness so that I can care for and love the skin I’m in. After all, it has allowed me to love and be loved, touch and be touched, experience the word and it does serve its very important purpose of protecting all my insides and holding diseases outside of me, and all my cells inside of me.
I’ve often wondered why I have this skin, how it could be a gift and not a curse, and what my life would be if I had normal skin. I observe how people take their skin for granted, and how I am so aware of my skin all the time, in ways that most people perhaps do not notice.
This has made me such a sensitive person, an imaginative person who images herself and the world differently. A person who began to wonder how the world would look if her skin was perfect and healthy.
As I learn how to live with my skin, I’ve been inspired in my art and music to express the experience and wanted to share with all of you a song I wrote about my skin. Maybe you can relate? I hope this brings you joy, compassion and perhaps an opportunity to love yourself this year.
May 2015 be a year for healing for all of us living with the skin we’re in!
Please follow me if you like what you hear: