The most terrible and beautiful and interesting things happen in a life. For some of you, those things have already happened. Whatever happens to you… - Cheryl Strayed

Whatever happens to you belongs to you. Make it yours. Feed it to yourself even if it feels impossible to swallow. Let it nurture you, because it will.

The kindest and most meaningful thing anyone ever said to me is: Your mother would be proud of you. ... The strange and painful truth is that I'm a better person because I lost my mom young. When you say you excperienced my writing as sacred, what you are touching is the divine place within me that is my mother. Sugar is the temple I build in my obliterated place. I'd give it all back in a snap, but the fact is, my grief taught me things. ... It required me to suffer. It compelled me to reach.

Healing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing. And it’s one thing and one thing only: it’s doing what you have to do.

Nobody's going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you're rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things befall you. Self-pity is a dead-end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It's up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.