Wild Response

Cheryl Strayed gained strength through the long grieving process from the loss of her mother. The unexpected, horrid journey on the Pacific Crest Trail has changed her character in a way that she can now bear living another day in life; she now is married with two kids. The wilderness taught her how to find her own inner self-actualization. From heroin abuse to multiple sexual encounters, Strayed was finding different paths to feel something within her again; to feel alive. “I get to do this. I get to waste my life. I get to be junk” (Strayed 53). It took strength, motivation and determination to start working extra shifts to save up for the expense of the hiking equipments, to then quit her job, and set out on this “preposterous” journey to hike 1100 miles without realization of what she was really asking for.

During and after her time of stress in the forty-nine days of her mother's cancer battle, Strayed had many sexual impulses. Sometimes the doctor give morphine to her mom without a word, sometimes he told her no in a voice as soft as this penis in his pants (Strayed 21). She was the one out of the three children who stayed with her mother during her suffering. Instead of bursting into tears frequently and avoiding seeing her mom in pain, Strayed showed courage by staying by her mother’s bedside to cherish the last few moments. Her disbelief in god also affected her helpless times because she had no where to turn to for comfort but to have these sexual impulses.

Strayed spiraled out of control and was destroying and endangering her life by drug usage and sexual encounters, but she did give up on her life. She fought and insisted upon finding happiness; “I was ravenous for love” (Strayed 23). She no longer knew how to take...

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...om such negative experiences breaking the boundaries of emotional freedom and testing her physical and emotional boundaries.

“Every part of my body hurts. Except my heart. I saw no one, but, strange as it was, I missed no one” (Strayed 70). This takes a turn of events. “Every part of my body hurts, except my heart,” gives new meaning and how Strayed manages to gain emotional stability in the wake of her mothers’ death, and illness. This shows great strength in regards that she rises above the obstacles thrown in her path--the feeling of what it means to be alive. This work invites and informs the reader of the many ways one can cope with loss; moreover, Strayed demonstrates what what may work for everyone--the method of sublimation.

Work Cited

Strayed, Cheryl. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. New York: Vintage Books,

2012. Print.