Are you now able to see that, whilst you still want a romantic relationship, it’s not a permanent guarantee of happiness?

That part has absolutely sunk in. There is this idea that if you could just get someone to love you then you would be released from the low rattle of unhappiness. Then you find someone who loves you, and you still feel the rattle of unhappiness. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with you. Maybe learning to tolerate that low rattle of unhappiness is part of what reminds you that you’re alive.

As an adult I’ve watched friends marry and divorce. It’s as if I was waiting in a long line, then everybody left the ride and said, ‘That ride sucks.’ But that helped me to understand that the romantic relationship I was yearning for was not going to fix the low rattle of unhappiness. The truth is it’s hard not to have found a relationship and it’s brave to go into a relationship and it’s hard to find one and then to lose it. All of us, at some point, have to learn how to get our hearts broken.