Sunday as I finished Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail I kind of sighed sadly and wished this book had been around when I was a young twentysomething woman. While the story is uniquely Strayed’s the meaning, the lesson, the whathaveyou feels universal. Mostly it’s this: you are strong and wonderful and can do hard things even if you think you can’t. Also, yes you may be wounded, you may struggle with the ghosts of your past, but it’s going to be okay.

Chances are even if I had this book when I was a twentysomething the meaning would have been lost on me. I was a unique, wounded snowflake. Eye roll. Just like everyone else.

This is not to take anything away from Strayed’s book, because it’s fantastic. She’s a wounded snowflake too, but unlike most of us she writers with the kind of bravery and unsparing eye you don’t see very often.

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