“I wanted to have something else, even though I had a disabled lover.
“Was it greed?”

The time I met, fell in love with, and broke up with a disabled lover, and the bumps and bruises etched into my life
A never-ending chain of words and rounds of self-reproach and reconciliation

This is the first book by Ha Eun-bin, who worked at the Disability Arts and Culture Research Institute 'Jit' and translated Eli Clare's 'Dazzlingly Imperfect' into Korean. It is also a book about her personal experience of wandering around the fringes of disability discourse after breaking up with her disabled lover.
It is also a story that takes readers into the lives of disabled bodies, bodies that face complex and intertwined difficulties, and makes them imagine a world of possibilities for care and life that we have yet to reach.
The authors, Eunbin and Woo, are ordinary lovers who met during their college years.
However, because Woo is disabled with muscular dystrophy and Eunbin is not disabled, their relationship is distorted, doubted, misinterpreted, and hindered by the world.
Eunbin faces stairs she cannot climb with her lover in an electric wheelchair, begins living with Woo's family in a 'barrier-free' school dormitory, watches Woo's muscular dystrophy progress while going to and from Severance Hospital, gets into trouble when his electric wheelchair runs out of power while traveling to Japan together, enjoys a 'staycation' together at the Conrad Hotel in Yeouido, attends the funeral of another friend with muscular dystrophy, loses contact with her family, takes up performing arts as a career, and appears in a documentary as a disabled-non-disabled couple.
Then one day, Eunbin breaks up with Woo after five years of dating.

After ending her long relationship with Woo, Eunbin looks back on the breakup for a long time, blaming herself and regretting it.
I spend a long time reflecting on how I really felt and how difficult it was, why I decided to break up so suddenly, where this love began, how it was twisted, how it was hurt, and where it ended.
With the belief that “regret is the truest thing,” we ponder the tangled thread of separation that is difficult to explain simply, and reflect on what brought this love to an end.

Writing about the sky is as difficult as looking up at the sun.
Wow, the time I spent was like hot sunlight, shining equally on everything inside me.
Everything that was born and raised inside me was bathed in that light.
Even after five years, the light is still so hot and dazzling that it is difficult to look at it properly for the time being.

--- p.17

I felt like the world was taking me hostage.
It seemed to say that if you want a disabled lover, you shouldn't have anything else but a disabled lover.
I wanted to have something else, even though I had a disabled lover.
Was it greed? The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it.

--- p.29

Wow, I was a noticeable lover wherever I went, a lover who received a lot of attention and attention.
If I had to pick a secret to its popularity, it would definitely be because of Woo's large and heavy electric wheelchair.
You are sitting and I am standing.
I walk in a crying wheelchair.
The person who cries is disabled and I am non-disabled.
The many cases this combination creates have become waves of events, big and small.
Some of them were somewhat within the expected range, some turned out to be overblown, but some came down in such a big way that it blew my mind away.

--- p.33~34

Because he could no longer live in the family home after graduation, Woo continued to take time off from school and postpone graduation.
One day, I had to leave my family life and find a home for my friend.
I used to lie down and browse real estate apps before going to bed.
Clean, tall, comfortable, bright, and expensive houses.
Old, spacious, rustic, familiar, old, cheap houses.
Someday, I wanted to find a house for the two of us to live in among the many houses in the world, but it didn't seem like I could ever enter any of the houses on my phone screen.
I had no idea where all those disabled people lived.

--- p.56

I don't know whether to consider it fortunate or unfortunate that we were among the luckiest cases.
Our daily lives are still difficult from the fundamental level, making it difficult to be conscious of privilege.
We have enjoyed a relatively abundant supply of rare intellectual and cultural resources that most people cannot enjoy.
At the same time, we wrestled with the most basic things most people take for granted: safety, mobility, and toileting.
We sometimes thought we were too noble for our station.
The fact that we were educated and intelligent, that we spoke a sophisticated language, was often a source of shame rather than pride.
--- p.90

I know that the hospital's measures have helped keep his body functioning and have been a great help in delaying his death.
Scoliosis surgery and respiratory medications have clearly extended the patient's lifespan.
But the treatment came with a not insignificant side effect, and Woo's life became as thin and thin as it was extended.
While the hospital dramatically improved Woo's life, it was often ignorant or incompetent in guiding him in a better direction, and sometimes it made his life more miserable and burdensome.
But if not the hospital, then where on earth can you turn?
--- p.104~105

If someone says they forgot something important, I would tell them that it was because they were dealing with pain.
No matter what he says, I will force the words into his hand and hold his fist tightly so that he cannot loosen it.
But it's hard to say that I forgot the time I had with Uwa.
I know very well that I burned every memory I could get my hands on to escape the pain.
Meanwhile, the best memories I had with Woo left me one by one.

--- p.180

I didn't know.
That I would become increasingly more and more strangely isolated.
That I wouldn't be able to properly see or even explain what the stones blocking me are.
That I am twisting my own fate with my own hands.
It was so lonely being the only two people in the world that I kept making noises.
It was a story that would continue to repeat itself, a story that would be misinterpreted in exactly the way I didn't want it to be.
Even though I knew everything, there was no other way.
I had to tell a story that no one else could tell.
Otherwise, I couldn't survive.
We had to somehow continue to live a life where no one lived for us.

--- p.185

One day, while drinking, I blurted out:
After breaking up with Woorang... ... Honestly, I was so devastated! And then, for someone who had a bad fate, I ended up crying so sadly.
I hated it because life had become more comfortable.
I hated it because I could take the bus, go up the stairs, and go wherever I wanted.
I was embarrassed about living in a bigger house and being able to do what I wanted.
All the freedoms and rights enjoyed apart from the law were shameful.
Living as myself was not a happy thing, but a shameless thing.

--- p.214

I used to think that the smallest of desires I had were dreams that were simply impossible to achieve.
Now that I look back, it wasn't really like that.
What I wished for was neither so great nor so extravagant, nor was it something I could not or would not do.
I know now that if I had tried, I would have done it.
If I had known then that I could have lived the life I wanted, I might have made different choices.
But I didn't know it then.
Wow, I was younger, inexperienced, poor, and dependent on the kindness and help of others.
I was much more accustomed to enduring, adapting to, and tolerating what wasn't working out than to pushing, trying, and pushing to make it happen.
It is absurd to see that our developed mind was not one of ambition but of shame, and that some of those desires were so small that we could only dream of them.

--- p.216

Were we really dying then? Was it truly a life not lived properly? I don't think so now.
To live is simply to live.
Even if I became poorer and poorer, even if I had great restrictions on my lifelong movement, even if I was forced into some other place, life would still be life.
As if it would have been raining in any body.

--- p.231

I feel a responsibility to add some sentences, even amidst this overwhelming sense of guilt and doubt, to stand on the side of those who live with blue bruises on their chests from beating their chests every day, saying that everything is their fault, but who in fact never had the ability or the will to do so, those exhausted and resigned people who knew there was no way out but could only continue to lead themselves to a worse direction.
Therefore, I write it down like this.
Because he was that kind of person, I was able to continue that kind of love.
Because he was that kind of kid, he was able to have some difficult love.
Even though that child was not on his own side, his love alone understood him.
Her love saved her life.

--- p.237