"Sunshine"

MosaicL aka "Sunshine"

I don't blog often anymore, but I feel moved this time of year. June is National Vitiligo Awareness Month. This past weekend we celebrated World Vitiligo Day. Next month, I will honor 13 years with vitiligo. This year of 2020 has been an unusual combination of challenges and beautiful awakenings while watching illness, fear, love, and strength divide us and bring us together.  We have all experienced some, if not each of these.  As I reflect on my journey with vitiligo, I took the time to ponder what is happening in the world and digest as much as I could. I dove deep beyond the sound bites and headlines into my life experiences as a black woman in America.

Sunshine 2010

The primary message of Mosaic Life Online directed particularly at women is to love yourself. Today the message goes beyond love to take care of yourself.  The first step is to allow yourself to feel whatever you feel, recognize it, and name the emotion if you can. The next step is to move beyond the emotion into action.  My action was starting Mosaic Life Online and helping others while I healed myself.  I later took some time off from the public. My barometer for my stress is my spots, but in  2010, the happiest time of my life, I was unconcerned about my spots (or so I thought).  I did my best to stay covered as much as I could. After my son was born I made a drastic life change in 2011 and my spotting began to reverse.

Mosaic then and now:
Vitiligo is a skin disorder that destroys melanin in the skin and produces white patches. Vitiligo is an autoimmune disorder thought of as a cosmetic condition. However, the strongest attack from this condition is psychological.

Sunshine 2020

I made the decision about a year into my vitiligo experience (2008), to take my white "blemishes" as my unique "beauty marks".  From this, my body became a "Mosaic" of multicolored and colorless shapes and sizes of art. For some time I was in a steady state of acceptance. My journey to getting to "loving my mosaic life" was a process. For Vitiligans, with the loss of our pigment, we typically experience some form, if not all five of the stages of grief.  Support groups and therapy are good tools for coping in those early stages.

My hands tell the story 2010-2020

World Vitiligo Day 2020

Whatever your flaw, recognize it, name it if you can, and then seek the support you need to understand what triggered it and how to conquer it.
"Beauty is way beyond skin deep."

Get into the action of loving yourself!