Ashley

“I looked around me at the birth and growth and death piled atop one another, at the open bellies of downed trees feeding new sprouts, all the life pushing through every crook and crevice and possibility for light. It was an ancient intelligence far too rich and complex to fully grasp but exactly what I needed to remind myself that it is in these layers of time that everything becomes itself… Strength, I had learned, was like this littered forest floor, built of small triumphs and infinite blunders, sunny hours followed by sudden storms that tore it all down. We are one and all alike if for no other reason than the excruciating and beautiful way we grow piece by unpredictable piece, falling, pushing from the debris, rising again, and hoping for the best”
― Shelley Read, Go as a River

“What will I weight more heavily, the sting of failing, or the pang of what might have been?”
― Reshma Saujani, Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder

“The landscapes of our youths create us, and we carry them within us, storied by all they gave and stole, in who we become.”
― Shelley Read, Go as a River

“Your grief won't go away; it's not a door you can close,or a book you can put back on the shelf,or a kiss you can give back once it's given. This is the way the world is now. Keep the worst things to yourself, like a bone in your throat.”
― Alice Hoffman, The World That We Knew