What My Scars Whisper
Reflections on Thirty
One of my dear college friends is well-known for the way she uses birthdays and new years for intentional reflection. (She even goes full Google Doc and physical notebook to organize her goals). I’m not sure if she’s the one who inspired this habit, but it’s a practice I’m grateful for. I recently turned thirty-one and spent the day smothered in sunshine and love from friends and family. We painted outside and ate snacks; I felt rich in the simplicity of gathering. Later, I sat down to reflect on the year prior. Though the specifics are unique, I suspect there may be some broader moments of resonance in this story. Read on below.
When I was graduating from college, I asked a talented friend to take some senior photos for me. I wore my navy blue Rice shirt and a favorite black skirt that hit a couple inches above the knee. She guided me to pose in a few scenic spots around campus, and the photos turned out great. They were bright, and I looked happy and full of youthful energy. One part of the photos didn’t look like me, however. I even zoomed in on the digital files to make sure. My right knee was spotless.
The year prior, I’d torn my ACL during a flag football game. The scars from the surgery (and a subsequent fall) transformed my knee. There was one thick, milky line, a stark contrast to my tan legs, framed by two other, shimmery nodules, and adorned with a grid of furious hack lines - like the claw marks of a frenzied dog on a wooden door. Even the texture of this knee had changed. The surgical scars were glossy and slightly raised; the hack marks rough and topographical. Small black hairs grew like soldiers around these abrasions, protecting my replenishing skin, safe from a razor that couldn’t get too close.
I loved those scars. They told stories - the one about my short stint as a wide receiver, running a corner, planting hard and cutting sharply to the outside, only to hear that fateful pop that sent me, quivering, into the grass. Then there were the seven months following of physical therapy and an operation, navigating insurance and using my babysitting money to pay medical bills. I started to train for a sprint triathlon, just to prove I could, to somehow make this all worth it. One day on a training run with my suitemate, I tripped and tumbled into the corrugated cement, wedging loose gravel into freshly sliced skin.
These stories told that I took risks, that I’d been hurt and fallen more than once, that each time I had community around to pick me back up, take me to doctor’s visits, help me put on socks when I couldn’t bend my knee. I felt a curious amusement that my friend had assumed I didn’t want these scars displayed in my photos - that maybe there was something undesirable or imperfect about them.
Eleven years later, I have even more scars on my knees. The right has faded somewhat but is still a tic-tac-toe of brown lines around smooth, lighter marks. The left knee is overtaken by leathery new-growth. Mauve around the edges, it lightens slightly on the inside to a dull red, a meteorologist’s heat map. I gained this waxy new skin sometime around October of my thirtieth year (another running-related tumble), and I’ve worn it proudly since.
When I look back on thirty, I think about my scars. The physical ones that decorate my body, a unique patchwork that shows my strength. The way my heart has been stretched like taffy, then pushed back into place by loves that were only meant to be wayfinders. I think about how someone told me I couldn’t fix everything, and I sealed that wound with tape. About how I started ripping the bandaid off my ego, and it stings like hell, but I’m too afraid to do it all at once.
I think of my body’s new pains, though I still look young for my age. How I built things I’m proud of, and sometimes messed it up.
But mostly, when I think about thirty, I think about the people who etched their names on my heart - forget the chalkboard, they carved into the bark, peeling away layers in the process til they got down to the pulp. The funny thing about these scars is it hurts the more they fade. But to revisit that fleshy vessel, I see the ones who have written their names again and again, the ones I learned, cried, ran, sang, danced, pondered, sat with. I’m real fond of those scars.