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Beautiful Because of Our Scars

If you could go back in time to fix your mistakes, would you?

Julie S. Paschold
2 min readNov 26, 2023
“Nerves” by Julie S. Paschold

Beautiful Because of Our Scars

I was on a road trip with my AA sponsor and we were telling each other the stories of our history. Our discussion led to the question: if you could go back in time and change the past, change your mistakes, would you?

My response?

I wouldn’t know where to start, when to stop, and how that would change who I am today.

Later, I was talking to a friend about body image. Growing up, I was taught to strive for perfection, and being the overachiever that I am, I took that way too far. After giving birth to two children — one a ten pound, almost two-foot-long baby — my body was far from perfect. My friend said that he was a twelve-pound baby — and that after that kind of life changing event, he wouldn’t expect a perfect body. Even better, he said, wouldn’t my body be MORE beautiful because of what it brought into the world? Beautiful BECAUSE of its scars and stretch marks?

This made me think back on the question of changing our mistakes of the past — isn’t that another way of striving for a perfection that doesn’t exist? In my past, I pushed myself to want perfection, but kept on messing up. Failing, because perfection…

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Julie S. Paschold
Julie S. Paschold

Written by Julie S. Paschold

Author of poetry books Horizons & You Have Always Been Here. Poet & artist in Nebraska, parent, twin, bipolar, synesthesia, sensory sensitivity, MS in Agronomy

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