I had to change. I had to change was the thought that drove me in those months of planning. Not into a different person, but back to the person I used to beโstrong and responsible, clear-eyed and driven, ethical and good. And the PCT would make me that way. There, Iโd walk and think about my entire life. Iโd find my strength again, far from everything that had made my life ridiculous.
Cheryl StrayedMen's stories are seen as universal, women's as particular. What women are up against is the battle to not be marginalized.
Cheryl StrayedIf, as a culture, we donโt bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad, to let go, to move on, to cheer up. And if they donโt โ if they have loved too deeply, if they do wake each morning thinking, I cannot continue to live โ well, then we pathologize their pain; we call their suffering a disease. We do not help them: we tell them that they need to get help.
Cheryl StrayedI was a pebble. I was a leaf. I was the jagged branch of a tree. I was nothing to them and they were everything to me.
Cheryl Strayed