Dear Dolly

key is to externalize your spirit. Think of her as a friend or a twin sister. A girl you’ve known your whole life who is going to be with you until your last day on Earth. You do share your life with someone. She is your company for ever. Listen to her, nourish her, challenge her. Learn
together. Be in conversation with her always – remove her from situations when she is unhappy and lean into pleasure when that is what she wants. You will fall in love again and experience romantic partnership. And then maybe again. Then maybe again and again. And those relationships will be so much better when you know you are choosing, rather than need, to be in them. Learn to be with yourself now. Your future self will thank you.

Yourself will find you, whether you’re applying red lipstick in a Montmartre café or browsing for books you will never read in Shakespeare and Company

no one should have the power to ruin your life by breaking up with you.’

. Sad conversations are sometimes the only place where real life is waiting for us. And having them is the actual act of compassion,

that every couple can be connected in three different ways: spiritually, intellectually and physically.

There’s always a space between knowing exactly what you have to do and finding the strength and courage to do it

ask yourself this: don’t you want to be with someone who really wants to be with you

Loving someone and losing them is a fact of life. Some of us will grieve more than others, but all of us will have to learn to live with absence of some sort

it’s really, really rare to find someone whose company you can’t get enough of. It’s not often that you meet someone you completely adore. Gorgeous, kind, silly, sexy, giggling-when-the-lights-are-out love is not an easy thing to find. My advice is to try to enjoy it when it comes your way, however long it may last.

Solitude has benefited my work enormously, but I now know the right partner does as well. Being single might be just what you need at this time in your life, but the support and love of this man could be too. I suppose you won’t know until you try.