Hello and happy Sunday funday. [Blogged while having just clicked a button, making my entire draft disappear.] So I am thrilled to start over. But enough about me. Well. Actually. More about me.

I have a crescent-shaped scar about a centimeter above my right pointer finger knuckle. I used to hate it. How dare my flawless hand skin be tainted with such filth. But now, every time I get a glimpse of it I reminisce with a smile.

It was game day. I was on my way to a fourth-grade house league basketball game, looking like a boss in my reversible purple/black jersey and silky black tear-away pants. To be stylish, I undid the bottom few buttons and turned my silky pants into flares. Because fashion. I was also sporting the saggy-pants-over-shorts look. Because youth.

As my teammates and I walked up to the elementary school where our game was, I decided to sprint through the doors. I made it through the first set and as I was running toward the second set of doors, I tripped over my saggy tear-away flares and slid like a baseball player sliding into home. (Think superman arms.) But don’t worry, the doors broke my slide. And when that happened, my right index finger crammed just so perfectly under the door that it tore the skin and bled profusely.

The end.

Just kidding. But that really did happen. And it left a pretty noticeable scar on my hand. At the time, I’m sure I screamed and cried because it hurt like a bitch. But looking back now after the pain is gone, I can appreciate the hilarity of it. And I don’t remember the pain I felt. I remember how much fun I had playing house league. I remember the friends I played with. The coaches I had. And I consider myself lucky to have these amazing memories.

The same holds true for the scars we can’t see. The ones our heart and mind bear. It’s hard though, because there’s no physical evidence of these ones healing. But when we’re able to think about someone or something that once hurt us, look past the pain we felt, and remember only what made us smile, that’s how we can heal those intangible scars.

Every scar tells a story. And every story teaches us a lesson. It’s in the way we remember and tell those stories that shape our attitude about our past and our future. So why not do it with a smile.