A Love Letter To My Stretch Marks

Dear Stretch Marks, 

The week before you showed up, my mother and I talked on the phone. “I hope you don’t get stretch marks like I did; you’ll hate them.” 

And I did. 

A male coworker told me that, after pregnancy, my body would never be the same. I would be less attractive. 

And I was. 

You marked me, I was imperfect, and I hated my body. But it wasn’t your fault. I hated my body long before you painted my skin. 

I grew up in the ’90s when Pantene commercials featuring long, straight, silky hair made my wild spirals and twists seem wrong. I was curvy when white women were being sold aerobic-obsessed lean bodies as the norm. My eyes are different shapes, and my nose seemed too big for my face. I had a pile of self-shaming gremlins destroying every ounce of body confidence I happened to muster. 

You crept in seemingly overnight. Your lines and waves forever changed the landscape of my flesh. At thirty-six weeks, I celebrated the lack of lines covering my pregnant belly, and at thirty-seven weeks, I woke up with my abdomen a roadmap to motherhood.

You began above my navel, wrinkling the skin enough that the shape of my belly button altered forever. You reach and weave down to my mounds pubis, like arrows directing traffic. You flow over my folds and down my inner thighs — telling my lovers where I long to feel their hands.

A beautiful, well-traveled roadmap.

I hated you. I covered you. I tried to get rid of you. My mother hated her stretch marks. All women hate their stretch marks. There wasn’t a representation of beauty in the world that included stretch marks. I was no longer a perfect, pretty, unmarked woman.

My gremlins told me my new stretch marks were unsightly, that I should cover you at all times to avoid scorn and judgment. I switched from bikinis to swimsuits that covered from breast to mid-thigh because I was ugly. I cringed every time a lover undressed me. Would they see my ugliness? Would they withdraw at the marks that proved I was a mother?

But, on nights when my baby boy visited his father, I’d crawl between the crisp sheets alone, my thoughts my only companion. As I’d think of my boy, the child I’d grown and nourished, my hands would trace your edges, slide across your width. 

Years later, the expanse of another baby failed to make an impression on my skin, but you were already there. You held the memory; you knew what to do. Now, I’ve got a small human who dreams of becoming a mother someday. 

“Mama, your stripes are so pretty,” her tiny fingers trace the lines, “I can’t wait till I can be a mama and have stripes from my babies. I want mama stripes.” 

Holy shit. 

I don’t want my baby to hate herself. If she spoke to herself the way I talk to me, or you, my dear stretch marks, I’d feel like a failure as a mother. 
I needed to change the way I talked to me, the way I spoke about you. 
I got rid of my swim dresses and slipped into a bikini once again. I walked out on the beach, sure that I was disgusting, but no one noticed, or no one cared. I was just a woman on the beach with a book and a hat. 

Showing myself to the world isn’t the only way to eliminate shame. Wearing a bikini wasn’t about revealing skin. It was about reclaiming a part of me; I thought I had to give up once I was no longer perfect, once I was a mother. 
Women must be perfect until they are mothers, then they must be perfect mothers (without stretch marks). Heaven forbid they decide not to be mothers…then they haven’t a chance at perfection.

All that required perfection aims to keep us caged. Bearing my stretch marks for all to see was the first step in breaking out of that cage. 

It was hard at first, and I moved forward little by little. I bought a bikini with a skirted bottom. Then, the next summer, I went with a one-piece that revealed my thighs. Now, I can purchase a bathing suit without consideration of my stretch marks at all. I see you; I acknowledge you, but I won’t hide you.

I needed my daughters and my sons to see me proudly loving all of me. I need to send them the message that there is nothing shameful about our bodies. I need to shed the shame about mine. 

And then, something happened. Not all at once, but slowly, bit by bit. 

I stopped hating you. I fell in love with you. I am grateful to you. Once I loved myself, loving you was easy.

I’m sorry it took me so long to recognize your beauty. In the past decade, most of my life has changed, but you’ve remained constant and unchanging. 

I heard you’d fade and turn silver-barely noticeable in my summer beachwear. Those who spoke such nonsense have never seen stretch marks such as you. You are steady, strong, and eternal. Fading isn’t part of your life plan, and that’s just fine with me. 

You’re a reminder of the incredible things I have done. You remind me that I am both strong and nurturing and able to give my children everything they need. 

You’ve given me the gift of imperfection. Embracing the parts of us that the shame gremlins tell us to hate is hard work, but if we practice getting rid of the shame, we can love our imperfect selves. Shedding the need to be perfect is freedom.

So, dear stretch marks, you are freedom. Thank you. 

Love, 
Molly

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