Do you tell your friends you miss them?

And other strategies for staying close while apart

I work from home on Wednesdays. So only the cat clocked the tears when they started mid-morning on an otherwise unremarkable weekday. I could blame the black coffee I drank on an empty stomach. Or the follicular phase of my cycle. But I think I know what triggered the feelings to form in my tear ducts and land on the keys of my laptop.

The poet Hollie Mc…