As I look into the mirror, I notice something I haven’t seen before. But what do I call it? It stretches from the right side of my neck and makes its way down my right breast. It doesn't stop there though, like a snake, it slithers down, consuming my right arm as well. I blink a few times. It's still there. I take my fists and press them against my eyes, rubbing them until I begin to see stars, and then I open them. My vision clears, yet the thing I can’t seem to find a name for still consumes my upper right body. Cancer? Discoloration? Birthmark? I turn away in distress. I pull a turtle neck over my head and continue about my day. The world shouldn’t have to see me with this flaw, and neither do I.

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            Growing up, people with the “perfect complexion” always surrounded me. Perfect in the sense that they were dipped in one skin color from head to toe. No one had marks except for your average beauty marks, stretch marks, and acne. In Manhattan, the lower east side specifically, I never really ran into people with different color skins, let alone with a significant mark like mine. So, the ideal skin wasn’t defined by me and made me stand out like a sore thumb. 

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            When I was very little, though, the mark wasn’t as noticeable. I look at baby pictures, and you can’t see the mark on my neck, chest, or arm. It seems like it developed over time, but I know it was with me all along. It wasn’t until I was about ten years old that my mark became my biggest insecurity. It happened in middle school. We wore uniforms and were allowed to wear short sleeve shirts under our jumpers. It was our first day back after summer vacation, and everyone was nice and tanned, me included. As I'm sitting down and talking with my friends, one of them points at my arm and asks why I have a patch that’s darker than the rest of my skin. They’ve told me that they’ve never seen it on my arm before and that it was weird. They weren’t trying to be rude. At least I didn’t see it like that. It's your average, curious ten-year-old questioning life the way anyone would. I kind of just laughed shrugged and kept it moving. Next thing you know, we were talking about our silly band bracelets. That was the day everything changed. 

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            I didn’t feel attacked when my friend asked me about my skin, but I did become aware of something I wasn’t aware of before. You would think I would notice it when I showered or when changing in front of a mirror, but I didn’t. I guess because I was so comfortable in my skin, I wasn’t aware of the flaws I had on it. I went home that same day, and I did notice the dark mark. I stripped the clothes off my body to get a better look, and that’s when I saw that it wasn’t just on my arm. It stretched up my chest and onto my neck. It was only darker because of the sun. Like the skin everywhere else on my body, when it collects enough sun, it gets tan. In the winter, my skin goes back to its regular shade, and the mark stays a bit darker than the rest of me. I couldn’t tell if I was disgusted or amused or uncomfortable. I asked my parents what it was and they didn’t know. That’s when my insecurity turned into my biggest fear.  

      

            My parents weren’t so worried about it being cancerous that they tried different homemade treatments to see if it would disappear. It was my new biggest fear because I couldn’t wear short sleeve or sleeves shirts without someone noticing it and commenting. I couldn’t go to family events without my parents mentioning it to everyone and then having them ask me if I knew what it was and if I was okay. This was the new normal for me. I now had to live with the ongoing concerns of my families trying to change something about me that they weren’t even aware of before I even mentioned it. But just like that, one fear turns into what seems like a lifetime in hell. 

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            I noticed that these homemade treatments weren’t doing anything, so I stopped doing them. At the time, I wasn’t aware of it, but looking back now, I realized that I was hiding who I truly was just so that nobody would “worry” about something they shouldn’t be worrying about. It wasn’t until I was about 12 where my life went downhill. Every summer until I was about 16, I would spend it at my grandmother's house. We would always go to the park, track, bike riding, fishing, and more. There was never a day we were indoors. I did notice that my grandma was bothered by the mark on my body. While everyone finally decided to fall back and leave it alone, she didn’t. She insisted on my mom to take me to see a dermatologist to get it checked out. It didn’t stop there, though. She also felt like I should be taken to the hospital emergency room because she felt like it was cancer-consuming my body, and we didn’t even know it. I know she was just worried and wanted what was best for me. I just personally felt like this is what made me hate my skin discoloration more than anything. Every year I went to the doctor's office to get a check-up; my grandma would tag along and tell the doctor to check my skin, and every time they would say to her the same answer: 

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            “There is nothing wrong with her skin. It seems to be some type of skin discoloration and or birthmark. It’s unique, and I can assure you it's not killing her.”  

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            Yet, she didn’t seem satisfied with that answer. A few years down the line, I told my parents to ask her to stop. I noticed that I was no longer allowing myself to show my arms whenever we went out. I didn’t want to keep living with this shame. I have become aware that there are people in this world who exist and have skin discoloration. People whose, and I hate to say it, actually have a pigmentation present throughout their entire body and not just their arm. My grandma eventually backed off, but I knew she was always concerned. 

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            I was standing in front of the mirror one night and was just looking at myself. I traced the mark from my neck to the bottom of my arm with my pointer finger on my left hand. I took a step back and stretched my arm. I twisted it and turned it; I tilted my head and maneuvered it in different directions to get a better look. I then looked myself in my own eyes. My entire childhood was created and spent on this fear of running away from myself. I let the narrow-mindedness and opinions of others dictate what I should wear and if I should be showing this mark off to the world. I knew from this moment forward that I wasn’t going to let anyone make me self-conscious of my flaws ever again. When I go out, I’ll show off my arms and my mark. I’ll wear a necklace that’ll draw people's eyes to my chain and then to my discoloration that’s on my neck. When they ask me about it, I'll answer confidently that it's a rare birthmark.

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            That’s what it was. A birthmark. It was no longer cancerous to me. It was no longer a “thing” nor a discoloration on my body. It was my birthmark that my body created for me to stand out from everyone around me. I wasn’t going to let people define it; it defines itself. It defines me. 

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            Now, 19 years of having to love this mark, and here I am. When I introduce myself, I present the birthmark that I have as my fun fact about me. I share this story with you because my birthmark taught me to be confident in my skin. Nobody is crafted into perfection, and if they are, it's artificial. Natural beauty allows what you were born with to shine through regardless of the comments other people have to make about it, even if they’re from your family members. Never conform yourself to society's standards, and don’t let other people tell you about yourself. I saw myself every day and still allowed the 2 cents of other people to impact me in my everyday life. If I was okay with it before people mentioned it, I should’ve been okay even after they said it. I don’t see this as me being weak-minded but as growth. You grow to love yourself. You grow to be confident. You grow to determine what you’re going to accept and how much of it you will allow. All in all, I love my birthmark, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.