It’s a lie you’ve told yourself that has flattened down whatever hurts. - Cheryl Strayed

Each night the black sky and the bright stars were my stunning companions; occasionally Id see their beauty and solemnity so plainly that I'd realize in a piercing way that my mother was right. That someday I WOULD be grateful and that in fact I was grateful now, that I felt something growing in me that was strong and real.

I’d been a girl forever, after all, familiar with and reliant upon the powers my very girlness granted me.

Allow your acceptance of that to be a transformative experience. You do that by simply looking it square in the face and then moving on. You don't have to move fast or far. You can go just an inch. You can mark your progress breath by breath.