All posts tagged: #kintsukuroi

All My Favorite People are Broken – Kintsukuroi Revisited

We snuck out to the back porch ready to tell each other secrets in the swampy Georgia heat. Sitting under the whirring fan, wine in hand, feet up, and heads laid back, we started our confessions. She broke her daughter’s spirit. I broke my son’s confidence. Her marriage was cracking where it used to be strong. My marriage was chipped and sometimes it hurt to pick it up to look at it. Her church broke her heart. My church broke mine. My old soulmate unfriended me. Her colleagues were lying. So much brokenness. Like someone knocked over a china cabinet right there in front of us. Shattered plates, chipped cups, cracked bowls. We were broken. Our most treasured relationships were broken. We sighed. I remembered Kintsukuroi. I wrote about it two years ago, and it remains one of my most popular posts about compassion, forgiveness, and parenting (please read that here and come back). Kintsukuroi: “Kintsugi (Japanese: “golden repair”) is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or …

You Gotta Be You (Halloween)

I am known for being a Truth Teller. I give it to you straight. I cannot hide my emotions or tolerate too much crap. I’m not good at pretending. So Halloween is not really my scene. This has always been the case. According to family legend, I was a strong-willed child. This story is one of my favorites: “When you were four you said you wanted to be Princess for Halloween. Your Mom didn’t buy you a plastic costume at K-Mart, she was going to make one for you. She stayed up all night to sew you a beautiful princess costume. It was shiny lavender with gold rick rack. You woke up the next morning on Halloween and hated it. You stomped and said, ‘I don’t want to be a Pretty Princess! I want to be Aimee Paulson!’” Here I am, fourth from the left, hanging out at Montessori that day. Screw you, Halloween. I’m Aimee Paulson. I played along in the future. I remember only two costumes. In 4th grade I was a gypsy – lots of blue …

Kintsukuroi – I Guess We Have to be Broken

A few years ago my son and I had a very bad day. As I tucked him in, I hugged him, and prayed out loud, “Oh Lord, I put a hole in this dear kid’s heart today. With my mean face and impatient, harsh words. Please forgive me. Would you fill in that hole I made? Will your light and love chase away the yucky darkness?” Enough time had passed since my outburst, so Caleb was in the place to hug me tightly back and I say, “I forgive you, Mom. I know you love me.” I laid there holding him in silence a long time. I hate that I hurt his heart. I struggled to believe God would really fix it. We’ve all been broken. Sometimes we are jerks, and we toss someone’s heart on the floor. Sometimes other people are jerks and our hearts get shattered. My kids have had pieces chipped off by peers, teachers, their own choices, pain, and me. God and I had a conversation a long time ago, when I felt too …