Exactly one year ago, I was sitting in my room, feeling like my world had permanently shrunk. I poured my heart out to a group of strangers online. My post blew up, and while the support was amazing, one specific (private message) changed everything.

A girl from Italy messaged me. She wasn't just offering "sorry"s; she was living my exact timeline, feeling my exact flavor of pain. Across a 7-hour time difference and 10,000 kilometers (I live in Singapore), we started talking.

At first, it was just survival, checking in to make sure the other had eaten or stopped crying. But then, the messages turned into daily life. We moved from "How do I stop missing them?" to "Look at this sunset," "Listen to this song," and "I think I'm going to be okay." We healed through our screens, two strangers on opposite sides of the globe tethered together by a shared ache.

When I finally decided to reclaim my life and pla solo trip to Europe, she was my biggest cheerleader.

I was nervous. What if it was awkward? What if the online friendship didn't translate to real life?

But she drove four hours just to see me. When we finally stood face-to-face in Rome, there was no "getting to know you" phase. There was just this overwhelming sense of familiarity. We hit the streets of Rome like we'd been exploring together for years.

We laughed, we walked until our feet hurt, and we stood in front of monuments that felt small compared to the journey we'd taken to get there.

We had a moment where we looked at each other and realized the "worst thing" that ever happened to us, those breakups, was actually the price of admission for this friendship. If you had asked us a year ago if we'd trade the relationship for this, we would have said no. Now? We both agreed we'd choose the breakup every single time.

To anyone lurking here tonight, feeling like you're shouting into a void: Your life is so much bigger than the person who left you. There are people you haven't met yet who are going to love you, and there are cities you haven't seen yet that will feel like home.

Hold on. It gets so much better.♥️

This story originally appeared on Reddit