Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.

But transformation often demands that we separate our emotional responses from our rational minds.

I encourage you to give him the opportunity. I don’t think you should let him off the hook, but you should not keep him on it either. Find a way to weave your father’s failing into the tapestry of your lifelong bond. Bravely explore what his new relationship means to him and ask where you fit into it.

The story of human intimacy is one of constantly allowing ourselves to see those we love most deeply in a new, more fractured light. Look hard. Risk that.

If they didn’t care about you, they wouldn’t have bothered to discuss this turn of events. Because they do care about you, they began speaking about it the moment they believed you were out of earshot. Collectively, they hashed out their feelings—in preparation, perhaps, to share a watered-down version of them with you.

This is because they love you.

after I realized Dave really did make Beth happy and that he was good not just to her, but for her

We would be her friends no matter what. Because we loved her. If she needed us, we would go to her anytime. We would stand by her. She knew this, and I knew the same about her. I knew she’d always tell me the truth, even if it hurt, and I also knew that she’d take care not to hurt me. I knew over the course of our friendship she too might have opinions or concerns about me that she’d opt to discuss with someone else in words that would be best for me not to hear. And I knew that was okay, that it was a perfectly natural part of sustaining a true friendship over many years, that it wasn’t a betrayal, but a blessing.

And the fuck is yours too, WTF. That question does not apply “to everything every day.” If it does, you’re wasting your life. If it does, you’re a lazy coward, and you are not a lazy coward. Ask better questions, sweet pea. The fuck is your life. Answer it.

Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.

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.

- cheryl strayed