If, 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 StrayedHealing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing. And it's one thing and one thing only: it's doing what you have to do.
Cheryl StrayedForgiveness doesn't sit there like a pretty boy in a bar. Forgiveness is the old fat guy you have to haul up a hill.
Cheryl StrayedIt was my life โ like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be.
Cheryl StrayedWriting is such a strangely and radically private act, and yet its purpose is this great sense of connection and community. I mean, I wanted people to love the book. And the only way to get them to love it is to try to make it good for them. So of course the audience has to be considered.
Cheryl Strayed