I'm just giving you shit. I think it's neat you do what you want. Not enough chicks do that, if you ask me — just tell society and their expectations… - Cheryl Strayed

had beloved friends whom I sometimes referred to as family, but our commitments to each other were informal and intermittent, more familial in word than in deed. Blood is thicker than water, my mother had always said when I was growing up, a sentiment I’d often disputed. But it turned out that it didn’t matter whether she was right or wrong. They both flowed out of my cupped palms.

And if there’s one thing I believe more than I believe anything else, it’s that you can’t fake the core. The truth that lives there will eventually win out.

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose.