You Are Not Your Skin

For years, I didn't love my skin. In fact, I hated--even loathed--my skin. Eczema had claimed my beautiful skin at the tender age of two months and it still hasn't completely let go, 38 years later. I wanted to be in anyone else's skin but mine as long as they had beautiful, perfectly flawless skin. There are times that I still admire and long to know the secrets to perfectly beautiful skin.

As I waited patiently at the Post Office, June 13, to mail a package and wondering why I chose to mail anything on my lunch hour, I noticed a lady who had a very beautiful dress on. As I admired her vibrant colored dress, I couldn't help but notice her perfectly flawless skin. She doesn't even have a razor cut on her legs! Smooth, even skin tone, not even a childhood mishap. From her accent, I could tell she was from somewhere in Argentina and I began daydreaming about growing up there.

Would my life have been different? Is the air there better then here? As she left the building and walked to her car, I desperately wanted her to have something anything that would not make her skin so perfect. But alas, the front of her arms and legs were just as perfect as the back. I felt ashamed:(. How horrible of me to want someone else to be flawed just because I am.

That's the type of thinking I used to have 24/7, but I only allow fleeting moments of jealousy to come into my head now because I embrace my skin now.

Eczema has left me with scars that will never heal. Some are light, bright, darn near white (aka my reverse freckles) and other are dark brown freckles. They are all a part of me and they all make up the magnificence that is Danielle Alexander.

Welcome to my journey into my "Story To Tell" that is my life growing up with the disease of eczema.