This one is for the love-broken. You, who were drawn to love’s soothing glow, only to be cast back out into the darkness. You, who gambled to join your fate to another and lost. You, who question whether ’tis truly “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, ” who wish you could somehow un-love, to erase those happy days because their cost is paid now by your sorrow…

Have courage.

Have courage because you are not alone.

Have courage because your story, unique to you in its particulars, is a story writ again and again on the hearts of all people.

All people understand how you feel right now, because they too have walked that lonely road. And they are confident on your behalf that it will get better (even though it certainly doesn’t seem so now), because everyone knows what you will soon discover: that lonely road is much shorter than it looks.

So take your time. Mourn your loss, honor everything that was good about your love. It fed you in ways you won’t fully understand until many years from now. But we can all promise you that it was “worth it,” if only because love is indeed the greatest good in this twisted and broken existence: for that sweet moment that you wished could last forever, you were doing your part to make the world a better place. So mourn.

But when you’ve regained your strength, please find a way to love again. The love-broken world needs you to make it whole once more.