182 Quotes by Aspen Matis

The trees were friendly, they gave me rest and shadowed refuge. Slipping through them, I felt safe and competent. My whole body was occupied. I had little energy to think or worry.

The bravest thing I ever did was leave there. The next bravest thing I did was come back, to make myself heard.

And if I'd be left alone in the woods again, I smiled to think how I'd find new gifts and thrive. At the end of a long trail and the beginning of the rest of my life, I was committed to always loving myself. I would put myself in that win-win situation.

The block of sky in our twin high windows became a nectarine, amber and rose pink, and we lay in silence as white sunlight broke.

Day vivified the city, and we found a rogue path through the dunes down to the beach, the foam edge of teal sea. The whole sky celestial sapphire.

Maybe I'd die. Maybe I'd burn to ash in wind, or blacken like the pines. Charred skeletons, I'd add one to the count. I didn't feel scared. I didn't think to panic. The trail wasn't burning. I was raw, ripe for loving. I wasn't stopping.

The way to self-love and admiration is to behave like someone whom you love and admire.

I'd crossed a border— Speaking openly, exposing the weak girl I'd been, I was no longer her.

She told me that my rape was not my fault, that I should feel no shame, that – simple as it may sound – I hadn’t caused it. No one causes rape but rapists. No one causes rape but rapists. No one causes rape but rapists. It was true. And it had not been obvious to me. And hearing it from someone else, a professional, someone who should know, helped me believe that soon I would believe it.