Replay

While I've been working on the koi quilt this week I've also had Doom at Your Service playing on my laptop. I like to rewatch things while I'm stitching so it doesn't matter if I miss a few subtitles; this is my third or fourth time replaying this series. It still moves me to tears, especially the last few episodes, but it's pretty wonderful, too. I highly recommend watching it as time well spent.

There are a couple of k-dramas I never tire of watching: Healer, What's Wrong with Secretary Kim? and Encounter are my top three favorites. Like Doom they're romances, but they all touch my heart and make me feel better about people and the world. All three have some dark aspects and depressing elements (from the beginning Doom is funny but also really sad, too) but don't try to sugar-coat or entirely resolve what causes so much unhappiness. It's life, and we have to get through those things to be appreciate the happiness and love that may come our way.

I know the other reasons I feel a kinship to the main characters in these stories. Like the female lead in Healer I am adopted; I fell in love at work like Secretary Kim -- with an older and more successful person as in Encounter -- and over the last few years I've had to deal with some major health issues and for the first time really face my own mortality as in Doom. I think that's why these stories reassure me, because in a way they mirror bits and pieces of my life.