"I know it's hard to write, darling. But it's harder not to. The only way you'll find out if you "have it in you" is to get to work and see if you do… - Cheryl Strayed

The universe, I’d learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.

Being near Tom and Doug at night kept me from having to say to myself I am not afraid whenever I heard a branch snap in the dark or the wind shook so fiercely it seemed something bad was about to happen. But I wasn't out here to keep myself from having to say I am not afraid. I'd come, I'd realized, to stare that fear down, to stare everything down, really — all that I'd done to myself and all that had been done to me. I couldn't do that while tagging along with someone else.

Uncertain as I was as I pushed forward, I felt right in my pushing, as if the effort itself meant something.