BLOOMING MARKS

April: When the red marks bloomed

Spring arrived peacefully, with a hint of summer breeze, and the air felt like a blank space waiting to be filled with words. The best part of spring is the natural, inescapable transformation that it brings not only in our lives, but in the nature around us. Be it a change in weather, carrying sun-kissed wind, or the changing colours of trees around us. In front of my home stands a green tree, a quiet reminder of change each time spring returns. The tree is as tall as a skyscraper, at least for my eyes, and its branches reach up to my floor, the fourth, with its leaves brushing the walls of my terrace. Sometimes I try to touch the leaves just to feel the warmth of my hometown, which is far away from where I stand now. They say nature carries a story, even of the time and place when we are far away from home.

So every spring it sheds some of its leaves, which is quite uncommon for the season, not because it's dying, but because it makes space for something new. Sometime back, I saw it losing its vitality with the appearance of its naked branches that once bloomed with hope in green. But after a few weeks, it made a comeback with a new face, decorated itself with green ornaments like a bride on the first day of her wedding. It looked beautiful, as if you didn't want to take your eyes off that.

Looking at that tree, dressed like a bride in green, I thought of the pages I left last month marked in red. For me, they were just a change in weather, but it was a change in colour and appearance, transitioning into a subtle yet undeniable transformation. I have had pimples in the past, I have had their marks, but nothing was permanent. Every time a pimple would sit upon my face, it would leave sooner or later. But these red marks were no regular pimple marks; they were more than that. They were gradually spreading along my hairline and on the top of my temples, which looked more like discoloration only on the side of my face. These were unnatural marks and had never happened to me before. I was used to getting acne, and it never bothered me much, but this change was bothering me. I asked my boyfriend to look into it, and even for him, the marks were unnatural.

I again tried to brush it off because I knew that these blemishes, just like my other acne scars, would soon go away. Nothing is permanent, and so were these marks. But every time I would look into the mirror, these subtle marks would make their way, highlighting the imperfection that it was creating. I couldn't understand why only on the side of the hairline and nowhere else. I mean, what could be the reason? Also, I had been suffering from migraine attacks for the last few months, and I suddenly started believing that maybe migraine was the culprit for causing such a change in my skin colour. After all, the nerves running along the sides of my head would hurt badly whenever I got a headache.

I googled that, and nothing could be found out about the link between migraine and skin disorders. Maybe the overthinking part of my brain was active again, I thought to myself, and stopped looking further. Little did I know I was entering into a blaze of fire which was ready to tear me apart.

With love,

AY