"I feel so blessed that I have all this love to give and friendships and people and children all over the world and movements to which I can give it. That really fills me up."—Ashley Judd, in a conversation for Town & Country with her longtime and very close friend, Salma Hayek.
[Content Note: Sexual harassment and assault.] That is such a beautiful sentiment, and it's even more poignant to me that it came amidst a conversation about their shared survival from serial abuser Harvey Weinstein and the larger movement against sexual harassment and assault in the entertainment industry.
It's a sentiment that resonates with me, and I'm sure it resonates with a lot of you, too. Not all survivors find that giving is integral to their lives, but many of us sure do; many of us find it a crucial component of our healing.
As I have said many times before regarding my work in anti-rape advocacy: Trying to contribute, in whatever infinitesimal way that I can, to dismantling the rape culture is the only way I can give a reason to the things that happened to me. Which I have to do, because I can't bear for them to have happened for no reason at all.
To give really fills me up, too. It restores me, because it reminds me that I am yet a human being with something of value worth giving.
Judd's profound, lovely words are moving all on their own, but even more so in juxtaposition to the aggressive destruction of serial abuse.
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