I have a scar. I have many scars, as I’m sure we all do, but there is one scar in particular that makes me think of freedom. It sounds silly, I’m sure, but it truly is a symbolic scar that gives me liberty every time I look at it.

As a little girl, I did not have much in the way of riches or possessions. I certainly do remember lots of liver and onions for dinner (which is scarring in and of itself), and plenty of hand-me-downs to wear, but certainly not “lots of” and “plenty of” much else. So when someone invited me to a barbecue, campfire, and fireworks display one July, I jumped at the chance.

It was a marvelous evening. I was a spindly being, very tiny in stature and weight. I was not used to the incredible smell of sausages and hamburgers cooking on a grill, nor was I used to eating them. The extreme delight of feeling ten pounds heavier was the first of many moments that would create a euphoria I had never experienced. We sat near a fire in those old, webbed aluminum folding chairs that were so popular in the 70s and watched fireworks that the host had purchased for the event.

I sat in awe of the sights, sounds, and smells of something I had actually never encountered before. Firework sprays against the dark sky of red, white, and blue. My eyes were burning from the smoke, and I felt alive. My eardrums were swollen, and I was enamored by it. My nose breathed in the horrible smoldering aroma of lighting-and-take-off, and I never wanted it to end.

I felt froggy. So I leapt. I became a wild banshee, dancing over the fire, and prancing around so close to the fireworks I could have rocketed into space. I was taking dares from my own conscience and didn’t care what the outcome could be.

The night carried on until it didn’t – and it was time to clean up and go home. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to go back to my old life of mere hours ago. So as the adults cleaned up the food, the grill, and the firework carcasses, I decided I would live my new-but-soon-back-to-reality life to its fullest. I was eight, after all, and I had now seen the world.

I saw the host cover up the fire with dirt, leaving a nice stage for my foolishness to persist. I was having a very mature conversation with the other seven- and eight-year-olds there that had obviously acquired the same sophistication that I had that night and decided to lie down in a mature way straight on my side with my head propped up on my hand. I wanted to give the allure that this was not my first rodeo, after all, and lying in such a leisurely position would not give away the fact that it, indeed, was. What better place to do so than on the fresh dirt round that was previously a fire with blazing flames?

I felt it. It’s like when you get stung by a hornet. You know it’s there, but there is a strange feeling of shock that doesn’t register the pain right away. It takes a few seconds, but YOU FEEL IT. And I felt it. My ankle felt as though I were a cow being branded. There was the knowledge of it, and then the pain registered. But I didn’t moo right away. I didn’t know what it was, but I had a feeling I needed to carry on as the new person I had become. I lie there, talking so casually for a few seconds after I felt the pain. I had a reputation to consider, after all!

I heard a sound I hadn’t heard before, much like the fireworks of the evening. Wait. What was that? A new variation of sparkler sound meeting the night air? A siren screaming off in the distance? Perhaps it was an unusual creature, baying at the frightening sounds from the explosions.

It was me. It was me howling so deeply and loudly that I didn’t recognize it was me at first. I jumped up from the ground and looked down at the ankle that was angry at me for being so reckless. The ankle that had been put on a hot, burning coal and that was drooling skin. The ankle that smelled like burning flesh and was actually still simmering with red flecks of fire.

Of course, people sprang into action. Ice from the cooler, ripped t-shits drenched in cold water being wrapped around the damage, and questions about the absurdity of laying down on a former fire pad.

Medical disclaimer: I grew up very poor. No money. No insurance. Not much of anything. Except liver and onions, of course. I was not taken to a doctor or to the hospital, though I should have been. The wound was great and would end up taking months to heal.

I couldn’t sleep that night from the pain. I wondered how I could have ruined everything by allowing myself to get burned. I wondered how I let my arrogance get the best of me. And it really hurt. On both counts.

The burn left an oval scar on the outside of my left ankle that exists to this day, though it seems to soften as I get older. Most scars do. But though the scars may fade, what caused them and the memory of how they occurred does not.

Every time I see fireworks, I think of the scar, and sometimes even find myself absent-mindedly reaching down to touch it. I think specifically of the fireworks that night that created a feeling in me that there was a bigger life outside of the only one I had known. Opportunities to experience things I never had before.

People say scars are “earned”. Until this particular time in my life I never quite understood that phrase, as a petulant child who made a bad choice and got what she so unfortunately deserved.

But I realize now that is not how it works. Sure, some scars come from bad decisions, or folly, or accidents. Some scars come from medical conditions or things that change our bodies. Some come from things that are not our own doing. They can sometimes not even be scars we can see with our eyes. But no matter the source, they have all, indeed, been earned – especially dealing with the hurt and better yet healing of each one of them.

I changed that night. I became a firework. Not because of the burn, but because I learned about possibilities. I learned about pain and learning to live with it. I learned things can hurt you, but how you deal with that leftover pain is what creates the future of who you are and choose to be. I learned I could shine and sparkle through anything. It FREED ME.

Whatever scars you have or wherever they are, don’t look at them with disdain. Look at them and know you’ve been through so much, and that whatever suffering they’ve caused, they were definitely earned. Know that no matter the leftover pain they leave behind, they can soften with time and healing. Know that how you deal with that pain is what creates the future of who you are and choose to be, and even the legacy you leave behind.

Don’t let the lasting image of what caused you pain keep you in bondage. Be bright, be shiny, be free.

BE A FIREWORK.