What if my birthmark goes away?

other things may go away, too

Recently I caught a reflection of my right arm in the mirror and cried out, no! because I could barely see my birthmark, because it was barely there.

I thought I’d have this birthmark forever! I was supposed to have it forever. My birthmark started out as a dark red circle, so I’m told. Over the last thirty-one years, parts of red have faded into the white of my arm. When I caught the reflection of my birthmark in the mirror the other day, all I saw was a few little pinprick red lines, the faint outline of a circle.

This thing that was supposed to be part of me forever might not be.

On one hand, it’s like, who the fuck cares? It’s just skin. So, it fades away and my arm becomes an un-pockmarked canvas. Okay. Physical appearances change over time, this is one of the only things we can be sure of in this life. So this is just another change, just another gradual transformation.

But on the other hand, this is my landmark. This is my strawberry kiss. This is the soft spot on my arm I have run my finger over so many times, feeling the concave dent, like there’s a layer or two of skin missing. This is my crater, whose soft ridges make me the moon. This is the part of me that was supposed to fade away by the time I was four years old but didn’t. This is my natural tattoo, given to me by my mom or the universe or both, the one I’ve had since I made my big move from inside of to outside of the womb.

This week I asked my therapist if they thought it was possible for regular people (i.e. people who are not monks or on their deathbed) to accept their mortality and if so, how. My therapist conceded that doing this was most likely difficult. However, they do think it is possible, and that you do it by, well… living. Just, living.

Living is easier said than done. The news is moving a million miles an hour and on top of that, my birthmark is fading.

I often find myself locked into my brain’s spinning wheel, chasing an unnameable something like hamster Sisyphus. I spend considerable energy dismounting from the wheel. Yes, this is a conscious effort. Yes, do it. Yes, live. Yes, stay.

The thing that is knowable, right between memory (fallible) and future (not here yet) is a sliver of time, a half of a half of a half of a second.

In that time slice, I have this mark on my arm. It feels like a dent. I feel it, as in my finger touches my arm, and I feel it, as in my arm senses my finger. I am here. I am here. You are here. We are here. We are here.

The concavity of my birthmark is just as soft as I remember it; the Venn diagram of past and present overlap in a perfect, red circle.