Feeding your soul, part 1

I interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to present one of my own personal heroes.

Formerly Sugar,



now, having come out Valentine's Day 2012 as Cheryl Strayed.



See what I did there?!

I loved her when she was Sugar, and I was afraid I wouldn't love her any more after she came out.  But she is still the same Sugar, except now I know where to look to find her incredibly beautiful writing.  I wish I could express to all of you what she has meant to me.  I saw this glittering human speak tonight at the Harvard book store.  Meeting her in person was an incredibly moving experience.  I want to share her with every one I meet.

From the Reckoning:
"My mother never spoke an ill word about my father to my siblings and me . . . she didn’t demonize him. She cast him as human: complicated, flawed, and capable of redemption. Which means, in spite of everything, she made it possible for me to love my father, this absent man who was half of me."

From How You Get Unstuck:
"Don’t listen to those people who suggest you should be “over” your daughter’s death by now. The people who squawk the loudest about such things have almost never had to get over any thing. Or at least not any thing that was genuinely, mind-fuckingly, soul-crushingly life altering. Some of those people believe they’re being helpful by minimizing your pain. Others are scared of the intensity of your loss and so they use their words to push your grief away. Many of those people love you and are worthy of your love, but they are not the people who will be helpful to you when it comes to healing the pain of your daughter’s death.

They live on Planet Earth. You live on Planet My Baby Died."

Inspiration comes from so many places, but no matter how I have felt in these two years of reading her column, she has always spoken directly to me.  If you are interested in working through your problems, becoming a better person, or simply reading great stories, you can check out the entire archive in the Dear Sugar section in therumpus.net.

Some of my favorites:

Tiny Beautiful Things

The Reckoning

How You Get Unstuck

The Obliterated Place

Reach

Please enjoy, and welcome to the Cheryl Strayed fan club community.