Kintsukuroi

So – I’m taking control of my dreams now, as they have gotten out of control.  We’re about 2 years away from the death of my partner, and about 15 months since I found out what a lying, cheating, sick bastard he was.  Sad to write that, but it is reality.

The dreams are weird – complicated and long and tedious – he comes back to gaslight me about the fact that he is dead.  He assures me that he’s not – and he wonders why I’m getting rid of his stuff, and why I speak of him as deceased.  I spend a lot of time arguing with him that it was his idea to die, not mine, and that he is really dead.  What’s funny is that we never fought when he was alive – ever.  My therapist suggests that these dreams are my opportunity to fight back with him – now I can confront the gaslighting and lies – she tells me to put on my boxing gloves and enter the ring with him in my dreams.

Is it weird that I can’t even stand to fight in my dreams? I am a pacifist in the extreme.

But, all of that aside, she also told me about Kintsugi. 

Kintsugi art is also referred to as Kintsukuroi and is an ancient tradition involving the repair of Japanese broken pottery. The cracked pots were fixed by filling the broken areas of the Japanese Kintsugi bowls with powdered gold, platinum, or silver.  Kintsugi pottery, as a philosophy, views shattering and restoration as a natural part of cracked pots’ history, instead of something which should be hidden.

My artist daughter told me about this a long time ago, but I didn’t take it to heart as a representation of my life.  But I see it now.  I can now see my life, once beautiful and whole, as having been shattered when everyone died and the betrayal revealed.  But instead of living among the shards, or dwelling in the pain, I can rebuild my life into a beautiful new structure – a vase with multiple dimensions and unique patterns, borne of pain and destruction, and repaired into unique and incredible beauty.

I’m excited to continue building!