Kintsugi is a 15th-century Japanese technique of mending broken pottery by gluing the pieces together with a mixture of lacquer and powdered gold. Evidently, a shogun of the time was unhappy with the clumsy repair of a precious vessel using staples to hold the fractured parts together, and the method of kintsugi was developed in its stead. The process didn’t try to hide the rupture but highlighted the breaks with gold seams, and in time, the repairs themselves were venerated as symbols of resilience and beauty in the face of change and decay.

Don’t you wish you could kintsugi your life sometimes? It’s hard work covering up your flops and flaws and hoping that no one will notice.

For instance, I’d love to kintsugi the master’s degree I never finished. Although it’s in the past, that failure still haunts me and makes me doubt my grit and intellect. I hated the cloistered, claustrophobic atmosphere of the graduate school I attended and knew I’d suck at teaching, but my ego still took a big hit when I quit. If I could kintsugi it, maybe I could finally see it as a sign that I turned out stronger by finding my own path. And it’s only lately that I’ve started to recognize that the broken pieces that were reassembled and glued back in place after a badly failed marriage were ultimately marks of strength not shame, reminders that I was strong enough to raise my kids on my own, go to college, start a business.

Many of the things I’ve been ashamed of in my life as evidence of weakness have turned out to be badges of courage. Our history is written in our brokenness and in the scars we’ve accumulated on our journey. I wish they all could be traced in gold.

Nikki Hardin is a writer of stories, musings, and memories. Her poetry has been published in Riverteeth Journal. She was the founder and publisher of skirt!, a monthly women’s magazine in Charleston, South Carolina. You can reach her at nikki@thedailynikki.com.