I have a terrible habit of not doing something until absolutely necessary. Getting gas when I’m already running late is one of them. This morning, as I’m closing my gas lid, a man beside me says “I think we can all hear your music now. It’s too loud.”
I turned the music down, smiled and drove off.
But that sentence has stuck with me. All day in fact.
Someone once told me that my scar tissue was too loud. Those words have sat with me every single day since. I’ve picked them apart. Sat with them. Tried to rewrite them to reshape the sting.
But no matter which way you frame it – it really hurt to hear that. Recently, I heard an echo of the same thought.
Different person. Different season. Same message.
So I’ve been thinking about scar tissue – a lot.
Scar tissue isn’t a sign a wound is still open. It’s evidence your body did exactly what it was designed to do. It closed what was broken. It protected what needed protecting. It adapted.
It isn’t the same skin as the skin that was there before. It never will be.
Maybe, that’s emotionally true too.
Maybe healing was never supposed to erase what happened to us. Maybe it was always supposed to change us.
I don’t want to become someone who never gets scared of losing people. I don’t want to become someone who never needs reassurance or never has moments where old fears whisper a little louder than I’d like.
I want to become someone who notices those whispers without letting them write the ending.
The mountains continue to teach me that lesson over and over again.
Strength isn’t in the absence of struggle. It’s choosing the next step even when your legs are tired. It’s trusting your body after it’s let you down. It’s slowing your pace when lupus reminds you that you can’t force your way to the summit.
Maybe emotional healing works the same way too. Maybe the goal isn’t to make my scar tissue any quieter.
Maybe the goal is to continue building a life that’s louder. Because loud isn’t always a bad thing.
Sometimes it’s music that makes the drive a little brighter.
Laugher echoing through the trees.
Cheers from strangers at the finish line.
Wind at the summit, reminding you that you’re alive.
Sometimes it’s the voice inside of you that refuses to believe your story ended where you were hurt. Sometimes it’s hope after a season that tried to convince you there wasn’t any left. Sometimes it’s joy making itself impossible to ignore.
Healing isn’t about becoming quieter.
It’s about learning which parts of yourself deserve to be heard.