Every now and then I could see myself — truly see myself — and a sentence would come to me, thundering like a god into my head, and as I saw myself t… - Cheryl Strayed

had beloved friends whom I sometimes referred to as family, but our commitments to each other were informal and intermittent, more familial in word than in deed. Blood is thicker than water, my mother had always said when I was growing up, a sentiment I’d often disputed. But it turned out that it didn’t matter whether she was right or wrong. They both flowed out of my cupped palms.

Perhaps by now I'd come far enough that I had the guts to be afraid.

I never had a mind for math. I simply couldn't hold the formulas and numbers in my head. It was logic that made little sense to me. In my perception, the world wasn't a graph or formula or an equation. It was a story