"I believe that it is one of the most important things in life not to lose anything of value that you have ever gotten, from the living or the dead, even from those who later forsook you, betrayed you, or bitterly disappointed you. Love, joy, and meaning can be resurrected from the most unlikely sources, from relationships saturated with sorrow, shame – even hatred. While it is impossible to predict what will emerge as meaningful when you choose to search it out, the very effort creates the potential for discovery and gives you more of a say in your own life. I don't think it's possible or necessary to recover appreciation for everyone who has violated your trust, but when there is something meaningful to retrieve, celebrating it is a genuine compensation for loss. It sustains you from within.

"If anything in your love was real – imperfect, ambivalent, obsessive, or selfish in part but tender and true at the core – it is yours forever, even though the one you loved loves you no longer or never fully returned your devotion. The authentic core of love is eternal, even if the person who inspired it will never return to you. But you have to hold fast to it and fight through your despair, your disappointment, and your bitterness to find it, to resurrect it, to claim it. With work and with will, the consoling promise of Dylan Thomas's words comes true: 'Though lovers be lost love shall not.' "