Kintsugi heart

Even though I won't really be able to claim to have been married to you for 18 years anymore, at least not until I'm 60 years old or so... nonetheless the traditional gift for the eighteenth anniversary is porcelain.

Kintsugi is, it's kind of corny to say, the JaPaNeSe ArT oF repairing broken pottery with bright, metallic glue. But, like all this "Japanese art of xyz" stuff, it has a philosophical component. The breakage of the object, and the repair, is part of its history and is interesting and worth remembering. It makes the object more beautiful and more perfect, in a way, in that it becomes more real, having almost "lived" a life and having something to show for it.

This thing is not true kintsugi—it was just made to look like it—but the sentiment still stands.

Of course the object is interesting and pretty—an odd heart vase for an anniversary present. But the fact that it's kintsugi, and porcelain, are just too meaningful.

I'm not sure that it's appropriate for me to talk about finding the beauty or some greater perfection in your broken heart. But there is beauty in this reassembled heart and there will be in yours—not because it's perfectly healed, since I understand that it will never be—but because the new heart has more life in it.

I hope to be there when it comes together. I hope to be one of the people that puts it back together.

I love you. Always did and always will.