Skin Deep

I've spent some time today looking at posts on a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder forum. One of the threads is for stating your accomplishments, no matter how small or ridiculous it may seem to people who don't get it, and on that thread I read a post from someone who's been living a "normal" life according to them.

Part of their "normalcy", they said, was that to counteract their triggers -- in PTSD, a trigger is a sight, sound, smell, occurrence, person, place, thing, etc. that triggers the traumatic memories in flashbacks or intrusive memories or overwhelming emotion or panic attacks or any number of other ways -- they had developed "skin as thick as iron".

I suppose this is good for them. It seems to help them. I'm glad they're getting on with their life and it's good to know that people are moving on from PTSD, or at least learning to manage it. But that phrase "skin as thick as iron"...that phrase bothers me.

I don't want thick skin. I want a skin soft to the touch that bruises and bleeds and lets people see my insides if I want them to. I want my skin to be permeable as white linen sheets on a clothesline in summer sunshine. I want my skin to damage and heal and burn and blister and peel and scrape and scab and goosebump and get hives. I want to jump into cold rivers and come up shrieking with delight. I want to stretch out on a Texas sidewalk in short shorts and a tank top and feel the sun baking me like ancient clay and shining so brightly that the insides of my eyelids are hot orange.

I want skin that feels all of life and responds to it and enjoys it and hates it and continues on living. I want skin that sometimes loves the rain, that dances in it and splashes in mud puddles, and I want skin that hides from the rain under soft, warm covers and is grateful to be dry.

I want skin that understands the joys of fresh-from-the-dryer clothing, of putting on clean socks after wearing wet shoes, of being written on by a friend's pen and proudly wearing the ink all day. I want skin that knows deeply the agonies of paper cuts and skinned knees and remembers how it got each and every one of its scars.

I want skin that shows the world with amused pride the green-blue-black-purple-red lumpy bruise it got because it played hard or got knocked down or did something stupid but then recovered, got up, learned, and moved on.

I want skin that freckles in the summers and gives me awkward tan lines. I want skin that dries out in the winter no matter how much I lotion it, that loses all color so that my veins are visible.

I want skin that deals with the consequences of life but then heals itself.

I want skin that, when I'm old, will wrinkle where I smiled and laughed, will feel like ancient parchment, delicate and thin and irresistible to grandchildren.

I want skin that tells a story. My story.