Cheryl Strayed

knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. 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

Power begets power. I willed myself to beget power. And it wasn’t long before I actually wasn’t afraid.

Which means you need to look sharp. If the words love, light, acceptance, and forgiveness are written on one side of the coin you’ve earned by creating the beautiful life you have in the wake of your ugly childhood, on the other side of that coin there is written the word no.

anxious little peach?

outside their age bracket

With that in mind, what other ways could your partners lighten your burden if they refuse to lighten it financially?

we want a child because we really want a child, or are we thinking about having one because we’re afraid we will regret not having one later?

want it to be otherwise, but it cannot be: the people we might have been live a different, phantom life than the people we are.

marriage is indeed this horribly complex thing for which you appear to be ill prepared and about which you seem to be utterly naïve.

That’s okay. A lot of people are. You can learn along the way.

really, really love women and don’t know if I could ever just turn it off. I also don’t want to end up another distant, difficult, noncommunicative male unsure of his own feelings.