Ok, this is hilarious. And he'd kill me for posting this. But it was our fake Christmas card from a tacky "love motel" in Gwangju. We were overly impressed with the his and hers scratchy grandma's curtains robes and got great laughs from this photo, which I never posted, of course. Until now...
April 9, 2014
(In a funny "Love Motel" in Daegu.)
(In our apartment in Hadong.)
(During a visit to Gwangju.)
(Vising "Love Castle" museum in Gyeongju.)
April 9, 2014
Augusten Burroughs wrote (or did he? *wink) in his book "This is How":
"Don't misunderstand me: the pain of your loss will remain with you for the rest of your life. But great joy will be there right beside it. Deep sorrow and deep joy can exist within you, side by side. At every moment. And it's not confusing. And it's not a conflict. This is among the oldest, deepest, most primal truths: the facts of life may be, at times, unbearably painful. But the core, the bones of life are generous beyond all reason or belief. Those things that ought to kill us do not. This should be taken as encouragement to continue.
And when The Worst Thing That Could Possibly happen is what happens, you would not believe that anywhere in your future exists one of your happiest moments. What you would believe, and be quite certain of, is that any good days and certainly your best days were behind you now. But believing something is true, even with all your heart, is unrelated to whether or not you what you believe is true. While there are some things from which you never heal, so be it. The truth about healing is that you don't need to heal to be whole.
By whole I mean damaged, missing pieces of who you were, your heart - missing what feels like some of your most important parts. Yet not missing any part of you at all. Being, in truth, larger than you ever were before.
Because all of us are made not only of what we have but of what we have lost. And loss is not subtraction. As an experience, it is an addition."
"Don't misunderstand me: the pain of your loss will remain with you for the rest of your life. But great joy will be there right beside it. Deep sorrow and deep joy can exist within you, side by side. At every moment. And it's not confusing. And it's not a conflict. This is among the oldest, deepest, most primal truths: the facts of life may be, at times, unbearably painful. But the core, the bones of life are generous beyond all reason or belief. Those things that ought to kill us do not. This should be taken as encouragement to continue.
And when The Worst Thing That Could Possibly happen is what happens, you would not believe that anywhere in your future exists one of your happiest moments. What you would believe, and be quite certain of, is that any good days and certainly your best days were behind you now. But believing something is true, even with all your heart, is unrelated to whether or not you what you believe is true. While there are some things from which you never heal, so be it. The truth about healing is that you don't need to heal to be whole.
By whole I mean damaged, missing pieces of who you were, your heart - missing what feels like some of your most important parts. Yet not missing any part of you at all. Being, in truth, larger than you ever were before.
Because all of us are made not only of what we have but of what we have lost. And loss is not subtraction. As an experience, it is an addition."
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