In a Thousand Different Ways

by Cecelia Ahern

I hate this frail young woman I’ve become, but I need to be her for a while.

On my contemplative days, when I have time, I reflect on all of those lonely worried years when I wondered why me, why is this happening to me? And I now know that if you don’t feel your own pain, you cannot recognise it in others. Our own suffering can cultivate the ability to help others.

I don’t want her to go a single moment without feeling like someone has her back. She’s the type to sit in a room filled with people and still feel lonely, to have sudden feelings of homesickness even though she’s still at home, the type to forget, you see, that she’s not alone, that there’s a circle of love and healing around her if she’d just look up from herself.