Cheryl Strayed

It took me years to be the woman my mother raised. It took me 4 years, 7 months and 3 days to do it, without her. After I lost myself in the wilderness of my grief, I found my own way out of the woods.

And I didn't even know where I was going until I got there, on the last day of my hike. Thankyou, I thought over and over again, for everything the trail had taught me and everything I couldn't yet know.

Now in 4 years, I'd cross this very bridge. I'll marry a man in a spot almost visible from where I was standing. Now in 9 years, that man and I would have a son named Carver and a year later, a daughter named after my mother, Bobbi. I knew only that I didn't need to eat with my bare hands anymore. That seeing the fish beneath the surface of the water would be enough, that it was everything. My life, like all lives, mysterious, irrevocable, sacred, so very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be?

Honestly? I'm lonelier in my real life than I am out here. I miss my friends, of course, but it's not as if I have anybody waiting for me at home. How about you?

Why are you here?

My mother used to say something that drove me nuts. There is a sunrise and a sunset every day and you can choose to be there for it. You can put yourself in the way of beauty.

"If your Nerve, deny you - Go above your Nerve" - EMILY DICKINSON and Cheryl Strayed.

What if I forgive myself? What if I was sorry? But if I could go back in time, I wouldn't do a single thing differently. What if I wanted to sleep with every single one of those men? What if heroin taught me something? What if all those things I did were the things that got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?

She died a famous woman, denying her wounds, denying her wounds came from the same source as her power.

Ash body. I prefer the ashes of the body. Soft and silver. As a pale light falling to earth.

Finish that sentence. Why do I have to walk 1000 miles?

I don't mind biting. Oh, my God. I can't believe I just said that. I'm so sorry. I've been on my own for a little while.