"Scared, Potter?" "You wish."

To say I really like Harry Potter is an understatement. I love Harry Potter. When I was considering getting a tattoo, I was leaning more and more towards the Deathly Hallows. Maybe I’ll do it one day. Why not make my love permanent?

I’m a Gryffindor and proud of it. If you don’t know your Hogwarts house, Patronus, or wand, stop here and go take care of that now. This can wait.

When I found out my wand on Pottermore, I was thrilled. With each aspect of the wand comes a specific description: for instance, I have cypress wood. Apparently, cypress wands denote nobility in the witch or wizard who possesses it. Like that’s a shock. Everyone knew I was noble.

If you keep reading, though, it says something of potentially greater interest. The possessor of this type of wand is “unafraid to confront the shadows in their own and others natures.”

That’s a lot to unpack, J.K. Rowling. You’re not wrong, but you’re only half-right—at least for me. You see, I’m not afraid of confronting the darkness in other people. I love understanding people’s souls and deeply knowing them. But me?

I run away as fast as I can. It’s easier to know others than know myself. If another person’s pain is overwhelming to me, I don’t have to live with that forever. But I do have to live with me forever. And that scares me.

Here’s the thing with being back in Boston a week prior to school starting: you have nothing but time. You can distract yourself for a few hours with Game of Thrones or Mr. Darcy, but you’re bound to at least find yourself with a few minutes alone.

Because of this, I’ve HAD to think. I’ve had to confront my own shadows. And I haven’t particularly liked what I’ve found.

Somehow, each question I would ask myself led to another, which led to another, to which the answer would always relate to the most difficult relationship in my life: that with my dad.

Considering the past 10 years of my life hasn’t been fun. Realizing the psychological damage that my parent’s failed relationship has inflicted on me has been even less so.

You see, I’ve never considered myself to be a person who has been emotionally or mentally abused. That happens to other people, yeah, but me? Absolutely not.

Well, you’re wrong, Joyner.

As much as I hate to admit it, it’s happened. The more time I’ve had to myself, the more I realize most of my relationships are haunted by the fear of being abandoned, of not being important enough to fight for.

As an independent woman, this shocked me. I hate realizing I need people. I hate realizing I’m not as strong as I think I am. Even more, I hate realizing I’m not as strong as others think I am.

I hate realizing I have wounds that never healed, since I failed to take the time to know myself, to wipe off the dirt and grime and pour some hydrogen peroxide over them.

Hydrogen peroxide is cool. I remember the first time my sister poured it over my knee. It stung. It was a big cut. I didn’t want her to do it. I didn’t want the pain to come back. But if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have healed.

That’s what sucks about healing. Not only do you have to open yourself up to yourself, you have to be willing to reopen those wounds. That’s the only way they’ll heal. Internal wounds are like external ones. You can’t see them, but they bleed, they get infected. They scar.

Addressing these issues within me hasn’t been fun. It’s not like I like inflicting pain on myself. But I keep thinking: if I don’t do this, I won’t heal. These wounds will remain infected, never addressed, always causing me pain. It makes more sense to me to endure the few days of intense pain as opposed to a lifetime of it recurring.

The fears I have aren’t going to abate over night. They’ll stay. I’ll always have the scars from these past 10 years. Think about your scars, though. You most likely remember when you got them. But they don’t pain you. More often than not, you don’t even think about them until you’re comparing scars with someone. Healing takes time, internally and externally.

The wounds inflicted by my dad will heal. They’ll leave a scar. But I won’t be in a state of prolonged, unrealized pain any longer.

We weren’t meant to live a life of pain and fear. We weren’t meant to live in a world that denies the rights of so many. We weren’t mean to live as broken people.

But we do. And we are.

I’ll always be discovering I’m a mess, that I’m a flawed, imperfect human. But that’s what’s so beautiful, isn’t it? We are all imperfect. We are all flawed, broken creatures who will never come close to attaining perfection.

I love that, knowing that I am not and will never be enough. In my own eyes, at least, this is the case. But you know what’s also true?

I am enough.

You are enough.

Because we will never be enough in our own eyes doesn’t mean we aren’t in another’s. That’s enough for me.

Regardless of what pain you’ve been through, healing is possible. All we have to do is take the time to face ourselves and our inner darkness, those shadows J.K. Rowling was so kind to bring up. It isn’t easy. In fact, it’s terrifying.

But isn’t that where the fun comes in?

Don’t you want a challenge?