The caged wild animal within us

Once upon a time there was a girl. She looked around the world and spoke her truth out loud. Sharing with everyone who wanted to listen all the questions she had about this life and all her creative ideas. Her happiest days were spend by herself in her room writing.

Letters became words, became sentences, became pages filled. Time didn’t seem to matter, since she was a full expression of herself in these moments. What else was there to achieve?

‘Time didn’t seem to matter, since she was a full expression of herself in these moments’

As years went by, for most of them she kept the conviction of her loyalty to creation. It was like breathing to her, an act coming straight from her core. Effortlessly.

In the last months of Primary school, around the age of 12, something changed. It was like these open wide fields she had lived on for so long, suddenly molded into organized civilized city parks. At that time it seemed like she had opened her eyes, but now looking back, I know she actually closed them.

Something told her it was better not to focus so much on that endless wildness in her soul anymore. To narrow her vision, because she was told that is where real truth resides.

So she went off to Secondary school, stepping into a box so much smaller than she had been living in before, believing that all of her that fell outside of that box, should be cut away. She shaped and molded until the box fitted her perfectly. At some point she believed that the walls surrounding her were actually what brought her comfort. Even though they took away so much of the incredible view.

‘Believing that all of her that fell outside of that box, should be cut away.’

She forgot or rejected all these sides of her that didn't make sense to the box.. She stopped writing completely. Her parents would drive their car and would think five times within one ride that they would see her on her bike. She looked like everyone else. Dressed the same, hair the same, covering her being with all that was meant to be ‘okay‘ and ‘acknowledged‘.

Years went by as she kept pushing everyday to shove herself into the restrictions society had placed. She knew what a girl should be like. She knew what a guy wanted. She knew what society expected of her. And because she knew, she made sure she became exactly that. So she was the good girl. She was the sweet girl. She was the great friend. The funny happy sunshine. The social animal. It took her soul, but it was worth it.

‘She knew what a girl should be like. She knew what a guy wanted. She knew what society expected of her. And because she knew, she made sure she became exactly that’

In the mornings, she jumped in the shower together with a can of energy drink, sipping on her desperate desire to fit in. Everyday she showed up, all masks placed upon her face, her hands shivering behind her back from all the sugar she had drunk. It as worth it.

Towards the end of Secondary school, parts of her soul started to have break-out moments. Suddenly they would show up, the girl anxiously looking around if anyone saw it. They told her to do her own thing. They told her about their dreams to become free. To become whole again. To create again.

Photo by Rowan Heuvel on Unsplash

She decided to respond to parts of it, only because she thought it would seem bold and cool from the outside looking in. Traveling the world, being that free bird, even though she still only flew in the cage in her mind.

But the new countries and cultures she travelled to placed the first crack into the glass container she had been squeezing in for so long. And whenever a first crack appears, a structure instantly becomes unstable. So as new concepts entered her ears and eyes, limbs started to fall outside of that box.

‘It was like a long earth trembling sigh.’

Shaking up everything that seemed ‘right’ to her before.

Mmmmm.

All that seemed real, was clearly not so anymore. All that seemed important, was suddenly to giggle about. All that seemed beautiful, she now perceived as ugliness in disguise.

She woke up again. Slowly but surely. The old questions about this life reappeared, even though they hadn’'t had space for so long. They had been hiding in the depth of her core. All patterns surrounding her boxed-in life, were still there. But she now could see they were not true to her.

She was meant for bigger, for wilder.

For something that would never fit into a container,

because it would burn and break the walls within a second.

She was meant to be free.

‘She was meant to be free’

Just like any other creature, she was meant to run the wild open fields. To scream as only she could and to speak her truth in every moment. To create and to do ANYTHING as a simple expression of her own unique being.

So she started to write again. Words would spill out of her, without her mind keeping up. Her soul had been shushed for so long. Constantly she reminded herself that anything that felt exciting and effortlessly to her, would be whatever was meant to be with her. She was creating for the sake of creating. Writing purely for the act of expression itself. So it didn’'t have to fit a mold. It could just be there, word after word. In the order she choose.

Knowing that whoever needed to read it.

Needed to connect to it,

would.