I hope when people ask what you're going to do with your English degree and/or creative writing degree you'll say: 'Continue my bookish examination o… - Cheryl Strayed

I hope when people ask what you're going to do with your English and/or creative writing degree you'll say: ... Carry it with me, as I do everything that matters.

You're looking for the explanation, the loophole, the bright twist in the dark tale that reserves your story's course. But it won't reverse — for me or for you or for anyone who has ever been wronged, which is everyone. Allow your acceptance of the universality of suffering to be a transformative experience. You do that by simply looking at what pains you squarely 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.

I thought about the fox. I wondered if he’d returned to the fallen tree and wondered about me. I remembered the moment after he’d disappeared into the woods and I’d called out for my mother. It had been so silent in the wake of that commotion, a kind of potent silence that seemed to contain everything. The songs of the birds and the creak of the trees. The dying snow and the unseen gurgling water. The glimmering sun. The certain sky. The gun that didn’t have a bullet in its chamber. And the mother. Always the mother. The one who would never come to me.

It is impossible for you to go on as you were before, so you must go on as you never have.