Our world is one riddled with clichés. Love is a gift. Love is pain.

They’re clichés because they’re true, of course – but like a well-worn t-shirt, their overuse has wrung them of all colour and depth. People say things like ‘oh well, love is pain isn’t it?’ in place of being honest. Rather than talk about how they’re really feeling, they fall back on well-peddled sayings to do the talking for them.

Recently, I heard someone reach into the gizzards of those clichés and wrench out a beautiful truth: pain is a gift. Four simple words, but the impact of them nearly winded me. When you’re sobbing to the point of illness and clawing at yourself in wretched desperation, it sure doesn’t feel like it. But it is.

Personally, I have always considered myself to be good with pain. At sixteen, a nervously anticipated trip…