Underneath your fingernails.

It isn't that I want to hurt you, I just want to make you understand. To be honest, though, I don't know if I'd be lying or not. Maybe what you did was payback in the first place, and all attempts at redemption are futile because we're already even. To tell the truth, I don't even know if it'd work even if I did, and I also guess that's not what is important. Revenge, I mean. I also don't think that's what this is about in the end anyway.

And the numbers don't make me hate myself so much as I thought they would have. I don't know how to know everything. I think that's okay. I don't know everything.

But I finally understand what it means to be comfortable in my own skin: It means freckles in the summer, and yes, chipped nail polish. And sure, I've got a little bit of back fat! But it also means I have a cute butt -- there, I said it. My skin means two scars on my right hip, and it means that thinking before I jump is going to be a rarity, and maybe I'm biased, but maybe that kind of liveliness isn't always a bad thing. Being in my skin means questions and opinions and a lot less answers than I'd like to have. My skin means I have a lot of words.


Being in my skin means I'm still trying to learn how to answer all the questions I ask myself every single day, but I'm comfortable here, and isn't that all that matters?


Yeah, that's what matters, back fat and all -- but it isn't the back fat that matters about my skin, it's my cute butt and tangible, tangible words, and what matters about your skin is the way you create art and the way you laugh.


What matters about your skin is the way you look when you smile and the way you listen -- really listen -- when other people talk.


What matters about your skin is the way you forgive and the way you love. What matters about your skin is your lips and the way you sing with them. What matters about your skin is the way you sit at the piano bench and your smile and how that smile just kills me. What matters about your skin is the way you keep your chin up and your secrets. What matters about your skin is the way you don't succumb to stereotypes and the way your collars are always crisp. What matters about your skin is the way your hair falls and the way you just fit.


What matters about your skin is that I love you, what matters about your skin is the way you wear it.


"So your husband's in the army, and you teach science. What do you discuss over the dinner table?" he asked, and when she made a face, I said, "Biological warfare."
All my love,
Addy