Let whatever mysterious starlight that guided you this far guide you onward into whatever crazy beauty awaits. - Cheryl Strayed

It was the thing that had grown in me that I’d remember years later, when my life became unmoored by sorrow. The thing that would make me believe that hiking the Pacific Crest Trail was my way back to the person I used to be.

The place of true healing is a fierce place. It's a giant place. It's a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really hard to get there, but you can do it. You're a woman who can travel that far.

There was the woman I was before my mom died and the one I was now, my old life sitting on the surface of me like a bruise.