All about Me...Bye, Bye Summer



Poolside, July, 2015

Before my vitiligo, I did not realize that I took “me” for granted.  I started my blog to turn what felt like a curse, my vitiligo, into a blessing. As my curse and blessing have come full circle, my blessing is, I actually want to see myself the way the people I annoy the most see me…Wearing whatever I want and spoiled because of my looks….

Even wearing the rose colored glasses I see life through now, it still sounds like an oxymoron for a person with vitiligo to be spoiled because of her looks….Ha, ha…with insults like that, who needs compliments?

My summer journey brought me full circle and back to me:

While my son spent time with family and took vacations of his own, with the exception of an end of summer birthday celebration for one of my best friends and a camping trip, I have spent a considerable amount of time alone this summer and I enjoyed it. Being a working mom, I sometimes have to remind myself to eat, because I am so busy.  In the storm of my chaos, I made the decision to remain present in the moment.  I stopped complaining that my friends, like me, are too busy and I simply took steps to be the friend that I would want to have.  I started to pay attention to what people said to me, especially the insults.  My goal was to learn and grow from it.  This sounds counter-intuitive coming from a woman who writes a blog about focusing on the positive in life, but the so-called negative was actually very enlightening. 

August 2015 marked the first time in my life that I was mocked for being too positive. That so called insult made me very happy.  I thought, “Wow, I have come a long way”.  My decision to focus on positive living really took roots in July, 2008 when I attended my first Vitiligo Conference. I decided that my "vit" spots were my natural body art.   Now seven years later (eight years with vitiligo), positive living has apparently become a part of my subconscious thinking and shines through in my daily life.

A curse….imagine waking up one day and not recognizing yourself in the mirror because what once was blemish free, soft brown skin complimented by a great smile was now speckled with patches of white spots and your hands complimented by beautifully long fingers that you animate to assist in dialog, now looked more like someone painted fingerless gloves on them. That was me eight years ago.  Since then, I have experienced much re-pigmenting (brown color returning to vitiligo spots), but the vitiligo is still very present and highly visible all over my body. Recently, I met a woman in my vitiligo network that also suffers from Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA).  She commented that although her RA was very painful, she suffered more from her vitiligo and wished RA was her only condition.  I thought, how difficult her mental anguish must be to wish for physical pain over changing skin color.

I was in my bikini and teeny, tiny outfits a lot this summer, all the way to the last summer bash before Labor Day. With my full body of vitiligo exposed, I actually started paying close attention to my insults….”You have no right to complain, you are small enough to wear anything you want”; “Women who look like you always complain about not having a relationship because men only want to be with them for their looks”.  I just wanted to scream, "don’t you see these spots!".  A person with vitiligo, not only thinks about their size, or physical features, they are constantly thinking about their spots when contemplating their looks…Maybe the others see my spots, but they see "Me" more. Maybe who I always was before vitiligo (gorgeous, funny, flirty, and tough), is who I still am.

I have a new spot in the shape of a perfect heart.  I think it is a sign that romantic love is on its way to me.  Regardless, I'm loving me right now, so love is here!