Pains of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are.

Longing has a flavour that comfort does not, which is why people who are perfectly content can seem faintly asleep. When you want somebody, everything sharpens: ordinary music turns unbearable, a Tuesday becomes significant. That intensity is a genuine form of aliveness, and it also gets romanticised most by people not currently in the middle of it. Ache is not a virtue, though it is rarely wasted.

If you are missing somebody now, you do not have to make the ache useful or turn it into a lesson. It comes from caring at that depth, which is not a small thing to be capable of. And if it has stopped feeling anything like sweet, you are not doing it wrong.