I was at the zoo when I saw her: a cheetah named Tabitha, born in captivity. A zookeeper explained how they'd raised a Labrador retriever alongside her to tame her. Now, every day for a crowd of sweaty strangers, Tabitha chases a dirty pink bunny tied to a Jeep. She never catches it, settling instead for a store-bought steak. But later, in her enclosure, I saw her posture change. Her head went high, and she began stalking the fence line, her eyes fixed on something far beyond it. My daughter whispered, “Mommy. She turned wild again.” A girl in the crowd asked if Tabitha missed the wild, and the zookeeper smiled. “No. She was born here. She doesn't know any different.” But I knew Tabitha knew. I knew if she could talk, she'd say, *Something's off. I imagine fenceless, wide-open savannas. It's all so real I can taste it.* I'd tell her: *Tabitha. You are not crazy. You are a goddamn cheetah.*
Four years ago, married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman. When I saw Abby walk into a room, my entire being rose to its feet and shouted, *There She Is.* My mother, watching this new love unfold, later said something that struck me to my core: “I have not seen my daughter this alive since she was ten years old.” Her words sent me searching. Where did I go at ten? I learned that ten is when the world begins its formal taming of girls. It's when we're handed our cages: the acceptable feelings, the proper way to be a woman, the body to strive for, the people to love, the life to want. I wanted to be a good girl, so I contorted myself to fit. I held my breath until I became bulimic, because none of us can hold our breath all the time. Bulimia was where I exhaled. I thought I was crazy, but I understand now. I wasn't crazy. I was a caged girl made for wide-open skies.
For years, I lived inside those cages, believing they were life itself. When my husband was unfaithful, I tried to be a Good Wife and forgive. I went to a therapist who, upon hearing of my love for Abby, dismissed it as a “dangerous distraction.” When I confessed that I couldn't bear to have sex with my husband anymore, that my body was filled with a white-hot fiery rage, she offered a solution: “Have you tried just giving him blow jobs instead? Many women find blow jobs to be less intimate.” I saw this taming everywhere. I saw it in the shampoo bottles in my children's shower: my son's screaming DROP-KICK DIRT and ARMOR UP, my daughters' whispering *alluring, radiant, gentle*. We are shamed out of our full humanity before we even get dressed.
I saw the cost of this taming in my own daughter, Tish. When her kindergarten teacher told the class about the melting ice caps and showed a picture of a starving polar bear, Tish was paralyzed with grief. She couldn't go out to recess. For weeks, she obsessed over the polar bears while I tried to pull her out of her abyss. One night, she looked at me and said, “Mommy. It's the polar bears now. But nobody cares. So next, it's gonna be us.” In that moment, I understood. Tish isn't broken; she's a prophet. The opposite of her sensitivity isn't brave; it's insensitive. She was paying attention, and her heartbreak was an appropriate response to a broken world. We are taught to ignore our heartbreak, to dismiss it as oversensitivity, but it is a signal, a guide.
The voice that recognized Abby was the girl I had locked away at ten. She was my own knowing, my wild, and she was roaring back to life. But how could I learn to trust her after decades of believing she was dangerous? I had to unlearn everything. I had to find the keys to unlock my own cages. The first key was to feel it all. In sobriety, a woman told me, “You're not doing life wrong; you're doing it right. If there's any secret, it's that doing it right is just really hard.” Pain is not a sign that I've gone wrong; it's a signal that I'm alive. It is the fire of transformation. I learned that I can feel everything and survive. I am fireproof.
The second key was to be still and know. For years, I had looked outside myself for direction, polling friends, reading experts, even Googling at 3 a.m.: *What should I do if my husband is a cheater but also an amazing dad?* I was looking for a map, but every life is an unprecedented experiment. There is no map. The directions are not out there; they are in here. I began to practice sitting in my closet, breathing, sinking beneath the swirling surf of fear and expectations. Down in the deep, I found a quiet place, a Knowing. It's a nudge, a feeling like warm liquid gold, guiding me toward the next right thing. I stopped asking for permission and offering explanations. I began to live from that Knowing.
The third key was to dare to imagine. When I looked at the facts of my life - a husband, three children, a career built on my identity as a Christian wife - a future with Abby screamed, *No. Not her.* But my imagination, the unseen order swelling inside me, whispered, *Yes. Her.* Imagination is not where we go to escape reality, but where we go to remember it. If we want to build a truer, more beautiful world, we cannot consult the world that is; we must consult the world that can be, the one that exists inside us. Instead of asking what is right or wrong, I began to ask: *What is the truest, most beautiful story I can imagine?* That question became my blueprint.
To build that true and beautiful life, I had to be willing to let the old one burn. Rebirth requires death. I had to let go of the memos I'd been issued about how to be a good woman. I burned the memo that defined selflessness as the pinnacle of womanhood, because a selfless woman is a depleted woman, and the world needs women who are full of themselves. I burned the memo that defined responsible motherhood as martyrdom and decided to be a model for my children of a woman who is fully alive. I burned the memo that a successful marriage is one that lasts till death, even if you're dying inside it. I let my family's form evolve, because a whole family isn't one that keeps its structure at all costs; it's one where every member can be her full self and be both held and free.
This un-taming is a lifelong process of unlearning and unbecoming. It is the work of trusting our bodies, which tell the truth even when we beg them not to. It is the work of understanding that our anger is a loyal messenger, delivering information about our boundaries and beliefs. It is the work of realizing that our heartbreak is not a flaw but a compass, pointing us directly toward our purpose and our people. It is the work of freeing our children - our sons and our daughters - from their own cages before they even learn they're inside them.
I have learned that being human is not hard because I'm doing it wrong; it's hard because I'm doing it right. A woman who is wild is not a woman who is out of control. She is a woman who is in control of nothing but herself. She is not an obedient daughter of the culture; she is a responsible mother of herself. She can be a river, a touch tree, a cheetah. She is a woman who has finally realized that she is not the sandcastle. She is the builder, and she is the sea.
