18 6 / 2013
"Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can’t cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It’s just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal."
18 6 / 2013
"Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me. Insisting on this story was a form of mind control, but for the most part, it worked. Every time I heard a sound of unknown origin or felt something horrible cohering in my imagination, I pushed it away. I simply did not let myself become afraid. Fear begets fear. Power begets power. I willed myself to beget power. And it wasn’t long before I actually wasn’t afraid."
CHERYL STRAYED, Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Sorry for the Cheryl Strayed binge, but she is everything I want right now. I practically wish I could grind up her books and chew them up or swallow them whole, the way she did with those chunks of bone.
There is always a power to a good book. But there is even more that comes from a good book read at the right time. Wild has been that book for me. While i’ve spent the past 4 months devouring scientific and heartless books, many based on research and truths about addictions and objectification and the human mind, this book was forced into my lap by a handful of different women who thought it’d be good for me. So this week, on a porch swing in the sunshine, looking out over the Lake towards Mt. Jefferson, I devoured this book. It was the perfect dose of heart and strength and healing.
I hated Cheryl at times. I hated her for what she did to Paul and her marriage, the way she allowed herself to be a victim for so long, and for all the same weaknesses I have and hate that I saw in her. But even at those times of absolute frustration, I kept reading out of pure interest in the PCT. I have friends who run ultra marathons up there, friends who hike there, and family who talk about it but have never been. That unadulterated curiosity kept me focused and turning pages until I started to see the sparks of determination and bravery that I’d been promised. Then I was fucking hooked.
Now here I am, devouring her quotes, her interviews and “Tiny, Beautiful Things” because I feel like I can learn so much from her. I want to find her home in Portland and hand her a homemade pie and thank her for the inspiration and small bites of peace she’s given me, then open a bottle of wine and cry in her living room and ask her how I’ll ever be sane again.
(Source: jenbean)
18 6 / 2013
"I went forward with my life not because I was strong, but because I had to. Whenever people say to someone who is experiencing a big loss, “Oh, I don’t know how you can do that, I couldn’t go on…” in an effort to be consoling, I always bristle. I appreciate that they are trying to be kind, but nobody has a choice about going on."
18 6 / 2013
"You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else."
18 6 / 2013
"He hadn’t loved me well in the end, but he loved me well when it mattered."
18 6 / 2013
“I’ll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.”
Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things
18 6 / 2013
The evolution of the swimsuit
Interesting presentation on the evolution of the swimsuit and how to balance modesty and beauty to best empower women. While some points are missed about societal constructions of concepts like modesty, still nice to see people working to give women OPTIONS to be comfortable in their own way.
Not to mention the terrifying research she references about objectification, but that’s a whole ‘nother thing.
