But it was something.

It was, after so long, something.

I have made an uneasy peace with what a pardon can and cannot do, and I think it is worth setting down plainly, because the world tends to imagine that exoneration is the end of the story, the clean triumphant close, and it is not.

A pardon is a piece of paper.

It is a real and precious thing, and I do not diminish it — it gave me back my name, my record, my ability to work and vote and exist in the world without a felony conviction following me into every room.

It let me hold my head up.