Colored glass and artistic tiles are beautiful, but only when broken and assembled with the passion of a single life’s experience does it speak of feeling that transcends language.
Let no one judge the shattered pieces for they are the mosaic unfolding, whose priceless beauty gives meaning to life.
Thank you for seeing the glass not only as evidence of damage, but as something still capable of holding light. What moved me in your image of the mosaic is that no single shard has to explain the whole life. A diagnosis can make each piece look like proof against the person holding it; lived experience arranges those pieces into a pattern no label can fully read.
I also want to hold one distinction carefully: the breaking itself is not what makes a life beautiful. The beauty is in the person who survives the cuts, refuses to discard any part of herself, and still finds a way to let light pass through. Your words gave the broken glass another meaning. Thank you for reading this so generously.
“On the page of my diagnosis, my love was a symptom.” Ouch! Xiaobian what are you doing to me!
Terribly unfair! First having to investigate your own heart before you are allowed to believe it. Most of us fall in love and then worry whether the other person loves us back. You first you have to ask... is even my love real? That is a rather lonely courtroom to keep returning to.
And then the waterfall! Loved that. Why must love arrive at an even drip to qualify as love? Some people drizzle. Some pour. Some arrive with thunder, lightning and the municipal authorities issuing flood warnings. 😄 Different does not necessarily mean unreal.
“I no longer submit proof of love.” Good! You stop carrying your heart around like documentary evidence. Exhibit A. Exhibit B. ECG attached. Enough.
Your writing made me stop several times. That's rare. Gladly subscribing.
I write at The Reflective State, where I meander, sometimes aimlessly, through reflection, humour, travel, history and fiction. Your piece brought my essay Agapi Mou, Philemou to mind. Mine approaches love from a very different direction. It asks what remains when love stops being about possession and begins changing the person who feels it. Perhaps our two pieces meet somewhere around the same question... who gets to decide what love is supposed to look like? If curiosity ever brings you my way, I'd love to know what you think.
Thank you for reading this with such care. You found the loneliness beneath the central question so precisely: most people wonder whether their love will be returned, while diagnosis can make you wonder whether you are allowed to trust the love itself. “A rather lonely courtroom” is exactly what that inner life can become.
I also loved the way you extended the waterfall image. The flood warnings made me smile, but the question beneath them is one I care about deeply: why is steadiness so often treated as proof of sincerity, while intensity is treated as evidence against it? Different does not necessarily mean unreal—and perhaps love loses something when we insist that it arrive in only one acceptable form.
Thank you, too, for telling me that the piece made you stop. That means more than I can easily say, and I’m genuinely glad it brought Agapi Mou, Philemou to mind. The question you describe—what remains when love loosens its grip on possession and begins changing the person who feels it—does seem to meet this piece from another direction.
I’m going to find it on The Reflective State and spend some time with it. I’d rather read it carefully than offer you a hurried response.
Thank you for seeing the humanity inside the intensity. That distinction matters so much to me: a feeling can be heightened, complicated, or difficult to trust without becoming unreal.
Perhaps the cruelest part is not loving intensely, but learning to treat every movement of the heart as evidence against yourself. I wanted this piece to make room for a different possibility — that intensity may change the volume of love without inventing the person it keeps returning to. I’m deeply grateful that this reached you.
Colored glass and artistic tiles are beautiful, but only when broken and assembled with the passion of a single life’s experience does it speak of feeling that transcends language.
Let no one judge the shattered pieces for they are the mosaic unfolding, whose priceless beauty gives meaning to life.
Thank you for seeing the glass not only as evidence of damage, but as something still capable of holding light. What moved me in your image of the mosaic is that no single shard has to explain the whole life. A diagnosis can make each piece look like proof against the person holding it; lived experience arranges those pieces into a pattern no label can fully read.
I also want to hold one distinction carefully: the breaking itself is not what makes a life beautiful. The beauty is in the person who survives the cuts, refuses to discard any part of herself, and still finds a way to let light pass through. Your words gave the broken glass another meaning. Thank you for reading this so generously.
“On the page of my diagnosis, my love was a symptom.” Ouch! Xiaobian what are you doing to me!
Terribly unfair! First having to investigate your own heart before you are allowed to believe it. Most of us fall in love and then worry whether the other person loves us back. You first you have to ask... is even my love real? That is a rather lonely courtroom to keep returning to.
And then the waterfall! Loved that. Why must love arrive at an even drip to qualify as love? Some people drizzle. Some pour. Some arrive with thunder, lightning and the municipal authorities issuing flood warnings. 😄 Different does not necessarily mean unreal.
“I no longer submit proof of love.” Good! You stop carrying your heart around like documentary evidence. Exhibit A. Exhibit B. ECG attached. Enough.
Your writing made me stop several times. That's rare. Gladly subscribing.
I write at The Reflective State, where I meander, sometimes aimlessly, through reflection, humour, travel, history and fiction. Your piece brought my essay Agapi Mou, Philemou to mind. Mine approaches love from a very different direction. It asks what remains when love stops being about possession and begins changing the person who feels it. Perhaps our two pieces meet somewhere around the same question... who gets to decide what love is supposed to look like? If curiosity ever brings you my way, I'd love to know what you think.
Thank you for reading this with such care. You found the loneliness beneath the central question so precisely: most people wonder whether their love will be returned, while diagnosis can make you wonder whether you are allowed to trust the love itself. “A rather lonely courtroom” is exactly what that inner life can become.
I also loved the way you extended the waterfall image. The flood warnings made me smile, but the question beneath them is one I care about deeply: why is steadiness so often treated as proof of sincerity, while intensity is treated as evidence against it? Different does not necessarily mean unreal—and perhaps love loses something when we insist that it arrive in only one acceptable form.
Thank you, too, for telling me that the piece made you stop. That means more than I can easily say, and I’m genuinely glad it brought Agapi Mou, Philemou to mind. The question you describe—what remains when love loosens its grip on possession and begins changing the person who feels it—does seem to meet this piece from another direction.
I’m going to find it on The Reflective State and spend some time with it. I’d rather read it carefully than offer you a hurried response.
Thank you for seeing the humanity inside the intensity. That distinction matters so much to me: a feeling can be heightened, complicated, or difficult to trust without becoming unreal.
Perhaps the cruelest part is not loving intensely, but learning to treat every movement of the heart as evidence against yourself. I wanted this piece to make room for a different possibility — that intensity may change the volume of love without inventing the person it keeps returning to. I’m deeply grateful that this reached you.