"Ive done my research and learned this: Ten is when we learn how to be good girls and real boys. Ten is when children begin to hide who they are in order to become what the world expects them to be....Ten is when the world sat me down, told me to be quiet, and pointed toward my cages:
These are the feelings you're allowed to express
This is how a woman should act.
This is the body you must strive for.
These are the things you will believe.
These are the people you can love.
These are the people you should fear.
This is the kind of life you are supposed to want.
Make yourself fit. You'll be uncomfortable at first, but don't worry - eventually you'll forget that you're caged. Soon this will just feel like: life." (pg 4-5)
"Good girls aren't hungry, furious, or wild" (pg 5)
"There I was, in the 21st century, when boys are still being taught that real men are big, bold, violent, invulnerable, disgusted by femininity, and responsible for conquering women and the world. When girls are still being taught that real women must be quiet, pretty, small, passive, and desirable so they'll be worthy of being conquered. Our sons and daughters are being shamed out of their full humanity before they even get dressed in the morning. (pg 12)
"She married him anyways, because she was 35 years old and getting married was what she was supposed to do. She married him anyway, because there were so many people she would have disappointed if she had called it off. There was only one of her, so she disappointed herself instead (pg 28)
I was wild until I was tamed by shame. Until I started hiding and numbing my feelings for fear of being too much. Until I started deferring to others' advice instead of trusting my own intuition. Until I became convinced that my imagination was ridiculous and my desires were selfish. Until I surrendered myself to the cages of others' expectations, cultural mandates, and institutional allegiances. Until I buried who I was in order to become what I should be." (Pg 46)
"It doesn't seem like being alive is as hard for other people as it is for me" (pg 50)
"It's okay to feel all the stuff you're feeling...Feeling all your feelings is hard, but that's what they're for. Feelings are for feeling. All of them. Even the hard ones." (pg 50)
"I thought that happy was for feeling and pain was for fixing." (pg 50)
I am here to keep becoming truer, more beautiful versions of myself again and again forever (pg 51)
"Consuming keeps us distracted, busy, and numb." (Pg 51)
"Feel it all." (Pg 53)
"When a woman finally knows that pleasing the world is impossible, she becomes free to learn how to please herself." (Pg 56)
"This is the most revolutionary thing a woman can do: the next precise thing, one thing at a time, without asking for permission or offering explanation." (pg 60)
"There is a life meant for you that is truer than the one you're living. But in order to have it, you will have to forge it yourself. You will have to create on the outside what you are imagining on the inside. Only you can bring it forth. And it will cost you everything." (pg 64)
"Destruction is essential to construction. If we want to build the new, we must be willing to let the old burn." (pg 73)
"Good enough is what makes people drink too much and snark too much and become bitter and sick and live in quiet desperation." (pg 74)
"Selfless women make for an efficient society, but not a beautiful, true, or just one." (pg 75)
"I burned the memo insisting that the way a family avoids brokenness is to keep its structure by any means necessary. I noticed families clinging to their original structures that were very broken indeed.
I noticed other families whose structures had shifted and were healthy and vibrant. I decided that a family's wholeness or brokenness has little to do with its structure.
A broken family is a family in which any member must break herself into pieces to fit in. A whole family is one in which each member can bring her full self to the table knowing she will always be both held and free. " (pg 75)
"I quit buying into the idea that a successful marriage is one that lasts till death, even if one or both spouses are dying inside it...I unbecame a woman who believed that another would complete me when I decided that I was born complete." (pg 76)
"WE CAN DO HARD THINGS... It isn't hard because I'm weak or flawed or because I made a wrong turn somewhere, it is hard because life is just hard for humans." (pg 85"
"Since I got sober, I have never been fine again, not for a single moment. I have been exhausted and terrified and angry. I have been overwhelmed and underwhelmed and debilitatingly depressed and anxious. I have been amazed and awed and delighted and overjoyed to bursting. I have been reminded constantly, by the Ache: This will pass; stay close. I have been alive." (Pg 89)
"Rebellion is as much of a cage as obedience is. They both mean living in reaction to someone else's way instead of forging your own." (pg 92)
"Broken means: does not function as it was designed to function. A broken human is one who does not function the way humans are designed to function." (Pg 92)
We all seem to function in the exact same way: We hurt people and are hurt by people. We feel left out, envious, not good enough, sick, and tired. We have unrealized dreams and deep regrets. We are certain we were meant for more and that we dont even deserve what we have. We feel ecstatic and then numb. We wish our parents had done better by us. We wish we could do better by our children. We betray and we are betrayed. We lie and we are lied to. We say good-bye to animals, to places, to people we cannot live without. We are so afraid of dying. Also of living. We have fallen in love and out of love; and people have fallen in love and out of love with us. We wonder if what happened to us that night will mean we can never be touched again without fear. We are sweaty, bloated, gassy, oily. We love our children, we long for children, we do not want children. We are at war with our bodies, our minds, our souls. We are at war with one another. We wish we'd said all those things while they were still here. They're still here and we're still not saying those things. We know we won't. We don't understand ourselves. We don't understand why we hurt those we love. We want to be forgiven. We don't understand god. We believe. We absolutely don't believe. We are lonely. We want to be left alone. We want to belong. We want to be loved. We want to be loved." (Pg 92-93)
"If you are uncomfortable, you don't have a problem. You have a life." (Pg 93)
I will not call myself broken, flawed, or imperfect anymore..." (Pg 93)
"...because it forced me to see that being a good wife wasn't enough to keep my marriage together. Being a good mother wasn't enough to keep my kids from pain. Being a good world saver wasn't enough to save my own world." (Pg 100)
"And now that we don't have to be good, we can be free." (Pg 100)
"She said, 'I do what the fuck I want'." (Pg 101)
"We tell our children that being brave means feeling afraid and doing it anyways, but it this the definition we want them to carry as they grow older?
Brave does not mean feeling afraid and doing it anyway. Brave means living from the inside out. Brave means, in every uncertain moment, turning inward, feeling for the Knowing, and speaking it out loud. Whether you are brave or not cannot be judged by people on the outside. Sometimes being brave requires letting the crowd think you're a coward. Sometimes being brave means letting everyone down but yourself.
Brave is not asking the crowd what is brave, Brave is deciding for oneself...it takes a special bravery to honor yourself when the crowd is pressuring you not to. (Pg 105-106)
"If you keep living with confidence, the rest of your life will unfold exactly as it is meant to. It won't always be comfortable. Some will recognize your brave; others won't. Some will understand and like you; others won't. But the way others respond to your confidence is not your business. Your business is to stay loyal to you. That way, you will always know that those who do like and love you are really your people. You'll never be forced to hide or act in order to keep people if you don't hide or act to get them.
To be brave is to forsake all others to be true to yourself." (Pg 106)
"What is better: uncomfortable truth or comfortable lies? Every truth is a kindness, even if it makes others uncomfortable. Every untruth is an unkindness, even if it makes others comfortable." (pg 112)
"It is a blessing to know a free woman. Sometimes she will stop by and hold up a mirror for you. She will help you remember who you are." (pg 112)
Texting is better than calling UNLESS. Unless you are one of those people who doles out texts like IOUs. Unless you believe that whenever you feel like it, you can just poke at me, ping me, jump into my day like Hiiiiiii and feel so entitled to a response that the next time I see you, you will arrange your face in an injured manner and say quietly, Hey, You doing okay? I just never heard back..."
Just because someone texts does not obligate me to respond." (Pg 113)
"It's nearly impossible to blaze one's own path while following in someone else's footsteps." (Pg 114)
Why do women find it honorable to dismiss ourselves?
Why do we decide that denying our longing is the responsible thing to do?
Why do we believe that what will thrill and fulfill us will hurt our people?
Why do me mistrust ourselves so completely?
Here's why: "Our culture was built upon, and benefits from, the control of women... the campaign to convince us to miustrust women begins early and comes from everywhere.
When we are little girls...our loud voices, bold opinions and strong feelings are 'too much' and unladylike, so we learn to not trust our personalities.
Childhood stories promise us that girls who dare to leave the path or explore get attacked by big red wolves and pricked by deadly spindles, so we learn not to trust our curiosity.
The beauty industry convinces us that our thighs, frizz, skin, fingernails, lips, eyelashes, leg hair, and wrinkles are repulsive and must be covered and manipulated, so we learn not to trust the bodies we live in.
Diet culture promises us that controlling our appetite is the key to our worthiness, so we learn to not trust our own hunger.
Politicians insist that our judgment about our bodies and futures cannot be trusted, so our own reproductive systems must be controlled by lawmakers we don't know in places we've never been.
The legal system proves to us, again and again, that even our own memories and experiences will not be trusted. If 20 women come forward and say 'He did it' and he says 'No I didn't," they will believe him while discounting and maligning us every damn time.
And religion. Sweet Jesus. The lesson of Adam and Eve...was this: When a woman wants more, she defies god, betrays her partner, and curses her family.
We were taught that who we are in our natural state is bad and dangerous. They convinced us to be afraid of ourselves. So we do not honor our own bodies, curiosity, hunger, judgment, experience, or ambition. Instead, we lock away our true selves. Women who are best at this disappearing act earn the highest praise: shes so selfless.
THE EPITOME OF WOMANHOOD IS TO LOSE ONE'S SELF COMPLETELY (Emphasis mine). That is the end goal of patriarchal culture...effective way to control women is to convince women to control themselves." (pg 114-116)
"I'll abandon everyone else's expectations of me before I'll abandon myself. I'll disappoint everyone else before I disappoint myself. I'll forsake all others before I'll forsake myself...what the world needs is more women who have quit fearing themselves and started trusting themselves. What the world needs is masses of women who are entirely out of control." (pg 117)
