A Long December

Remember when I said that I saw a girl at the beach and immediately dubbed her J-Woww and she was lovely and I was all “I’m going to be in a bikini next year”?

Well.

A)     I’m not in a bikini.

B)      This is not about me.

I was at the beach last weekend – same old me, same old body – when J Woww rolled in. Still rocking the bikini, but not in the same shape, exactly. She still looked amazing, mind you, but the layers of muscle that she’d been sporting before looked softer. She looked curvier to me.

It would have been easy to snork and chuckle and judge and be like, HAHAHA J WOWW GAINED WEIGHT except, well, I’ve been the girl who got mocked and no one likes that. (We don’t judge, y’all.)

And also? When she turned to set down her beach chair, I saw the scars.

They were massive, and they were new.

On one of her arms, she had by her shoulder a new, barely healed burn scar. It was, if I had to guess, larger than my hand. Lower on her arm, she was wearing a bandage, the kind that you get if you’ve had skin grafting. It covered a large part of her forearm. She also had some scars on her torso.

J Woww had a hard winter.

I don’t know this woman. I don’t know anything about her except that I see her on the beach. But I can tell you this: She is amazing. She is strong.

She doesn’t cover up and she doesn’t apologize.

True story: about 10 years ago, I had surgery on my shoulder. In the summer. My partner at the time and I went out to dinner, and I was wearing something that showed the scars, which were still healing. The people sitting next to us blatantly stared at me, at my scars, and made comments about the fact that I had no business being out in public, no business wearing something that showed what was, honestly, minor. Some stitches. Nothing gross or appalling. Just not what they considered beautiful.

I felt like I had done something wrong. I felt … ugly.

J Woww knows that she is beautiful.

I was envious of her last year – she was ROCKING that bikini, man, I can’t even tell you – but this year, I am more envious.

It would be easy to cover up, to hide – after the scene at the restaurant, I surely did -- and it is probably easy to feel like you should when you wear your scars on the outside. But she doesn’t – and she shouldn’t have to. None of us should.

I used to envy her abs.

Now I envy her courage.