What is REAL?

I received this passage from the Velveteen Rabbit from a dear friend of mine.
She helped me become REAL.
I have a LOT of friends
who have made me REAL.
I hope I can bring Real-ness to Korea.

What is REAL? asked the Rabbit one day. Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?

Real isn't how you are made, said the Skin Horse. It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become REAL.

Does it hurt?

Sometimes. For he was always truthful. When you are REAL you don't mind being hurt.

Does it happen all at once, like being wound up, or bit by bit?

It doesn't happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are REAL, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are REAL you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

I suppose you are REAL? And then he wished he had not said it for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled. The Boy's Uncle made me REAL. That was a great many years ago; but once you are REAL you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called REAL happened to him. He longed to become REAL, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

To those who have made me REAL.

Thank you.

And thanks for working to keep me REAL

by loving me, even though there are many miles between us.

(Typed while enjoying a Brown Bone China mug of Lichee Black Tea that I picked up in San Francisco)