a remedy

1. Stop refreshing facebook. Log out. Turn off your phone. You will not feel better for its silence.

2. Come to terms with the fact that sometimes you will miss people more than they miss you. Remind yourself that this is not weakness.

3. Acknowledge your loneliness. Refuse to feel empty.

4. Remember that time passes. Think of happier things. You are worth loving, and people are eager to love you. Let them show you.

5. Love them back. Soft hearts may dent, but granite hearts will shatter. Forgive, again and again, and do not let yourself flinch away from the antiseptic sting.

6. Pray. You don't have to hold the world together. You don't have to hold yourself together. Find rest, and know that regardless of loneliness, of hurt, of unrequited caring, you are infinitely treasured.

(I went away. I saw the two people I've written about more than any others, and it was good. Now I've returned, and these are the words I need to be reminded of. How has your week been?

Love.)