I Am My Scars

A small thing reopened an old wound this week.

An institutional message announcing plans for the library described library faculty as being “central to the conversation.” I read the sentence and found myself saying, almost involuntarily:

Central to the conversation… really?

The words landed in a place that has been tender for a long time.

For a while, I held open the possibility that there might one day be a reckoning, a moment when the relational rupture surrounding this particular event might be acknowledged and examined. Not an apology hurried past, or a framing that this is only about my hurt feelings, but a genuine pause. A conversation about what happened and why.

Over time, I came to understand that this reckoning might never come.

This week, something shifted again. The realization moved from possible to inevitable. The institution will continue forward, speaking its language of participation and engagement, while certain ruptures remain unexamined.

Recognizing that brought a flare of anger and grief I thought I had already moved past. Apparently not. These things have their own pacing.

In the midst of that flare, an unlikely line came to mind:

“I am my scars.”

It’s often read as defiance, but what struck me this time was the calm underneath it. It didn’t register with me before this week. The line refuses two things at once: the erasure of the wound and the shame attached to it. It acknowledges that the injury happened and that it changed the person who carries it.

I am beginning to understand that.

There was a time when I hoped that understanding, shared understanding, might repair the rupture. Now I see that the institution will move on without that reckoning. That recognition is painful, but it also clarifies something important.

The scar remains. So does the sight it brings.

Perhaps that is enough for now.