"The women whom I most admire in the world are those who have lived long and survived much. They have been through love, amazement, loss, catastrophe, sorrow. Most of all, though, they have been through DISAPPOINTMENT — and they have each individually found a way to live through it. Not only have they lived through disappointment; they came out on the other side much stronger as a result, having earned perspective, endurance, and wisdom through their trials.
One of the biggest misconceptions about women is that we cannot survive disappointment — because who among us — after a certain number of years of existence — has not been terribly disappointed? By love, by loss, by pain, by life itself?
Yet we are still here. Still here, and, if anything, stronger as we get older. Stronger for all that we have passed through. This is the truth that all the greatest old women know, deep in their bones.
The women whom I love and admire for their strength and grace did not get that way because shit worked out. They got that way because shit went wrong, and they handled it. They handled it in a thousand different ways on a thousand different days, but they handled it.
Those women are my SUPERHEROES." ? ? ? #elizabethgilbert