Begrudgingly Enchanted<\/p>\n
When I worked at Disneyland, I mercilessly mocked people who visited without children. I swore I would never be a \u201cDisney Adult.\u201d So imagine my horror when I learned that my partner adored Disney. When he was a child, a birth defect led to complicated surgeries and, eventually, an amputation on his left leg. Every summer, at the Children\u2019s Hospital of Orange County, he would bear excruciating pain while, only minutes away, other children rode Space Mountain and gorged on churros. As a grown-up, Disneyworld is his happy place. Over the years, I\u2019ve begrudgingly allowed it to become mine, too. \u2014 Debby Dodds<\/p>\n
Life After Jake<\/p>\n
When people find out our son Jake died when he was 4, they often say, \u201cI can\u2019t imagine the pain.\u201d I wouldn\u2019t have been able to, either. My husband and I waded through the terrible and murky territory of child loss together. It took time, and we weren\u2019t always in sync, but we discovered that great joy can exist after great pain. Jake keeps us bonded, reminding us that life is for the living. \u2014 Heather Straughter<\/p>\n
Coming Late, Leaving Early<\/p>\n
I got to the party late; everyone was a few drinks in. The music was too loud. The married man hugged me for too long. Three years into not drinking, I felt as sober as could be. A woman asked loudly how my dying mother was doing. I yelled back: \u201cBad!\u201d I grabbed my husband\u2019s hand, made a face. We left the party early. At home, I picked up a novel and crawled into bed. Three hours later, I stood up, astonished at how words on a page could make me fall in love with the world again. \u2014 Kathleen Donahoe<\/p>\n
A New Lens<\/p>\n
As a woman who once was a girl with an eating disorder, I didn\u2019t expect to fall in love with a photographer. \u201cI\u2019m not that photogenic,\u201d I told him. \u201cThat\u2019s because you haven\u2019t seen yourself through my lens,\u201d he replied. I worried that his lens would look like mine. On our fifth date, he photographed me on a blanket in the park at dusk. Later, he sent the photo. I didn\u2019t see the distortion of imperfections. I saw beauty. I focused on the fading light and the brightness of my smile \u2014 the happiness of finally feeling safe to be seen. \u2014 Allison Grinberg-Funes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Begrudgingly Enchanted When I worked at Disneyland, I mercilessly mocked people who visited without children. I swore I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[84606,84605,1590,84603,84604,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-214305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-anorexia-nervosa","tag-dating-and-relationships","tag-deaths-obituaries","tag-love-emotion","tag-modern-love-times-column","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}