For Every Fierce Woman Who Has Tried To Be Tame

I know you.

I know that you have always felt different – a little bit more restless than perhaps you ought to be as a child. A little less timid, a tad bit too brash. I know you’ve grown up with inklings of suspicion – that your mind does not work the way it should, perhaps. Your thoughts whirl around at strange speeds and you cannot seem to reel yourself in.

I know that you have tried to settle down – tried to calm your passions, cool your fire and slip into the steady existence that seems to lull everyone else into oblivion. I know that you have reasoned with your instincts, rationalized your desires and fought against the churning chaos inside your bloodstream that tells you to always seek more. To always do more. To always be more than was ever expected of you.

I know the visions of love that you were taught as a child do not appeal to you – you do not want the dependency, the complacency, the fairy-tale story that everyone else seems to wants. I know you’re dying for someone to tell you that this does not mean you’re incapable of love. That you simply have not found the right person yet – the one who wakes up in the night burning with the same fire that burns inside you, thrumming with the same energy that drives you and reeling on forward with the same sort of reckless abandon that beckons you, too. I know you long to be told that you do not have to tone yourself down to a smaller, frailer, more helpless version of yourself in order to be loved. You just have to wait a little longer, run a little further, come across that great love a little bit differently. You are the flame, not the moth. And your job is to burn with conviction.

I know it hasn’t always been easy. I know that life has been a constant tug-of-war for you, no matter where you go. You have stayed when you wanted to leave. Held on when you wanted to give in. Been at ends with your own exhausted mind about what makes you happy because you do not want the things you were once taught to want. And that’s okay. It is okay in a way that you have never been told, perhaps because you’ve never met anyone like you. And that is a shame. It is a shame there aren’t more people like you.

I know you’re not as wild as they think you are. I know you’ve been torn, more than once. I know you’ve felt the pull of both coming and going, of loving and leaving, of settling down and breaking free. I know you seek the tiny comforts that others don’t expect from you – Having someone to report to when you’re far away, having somewhere to come home to when your adventuring is done. I know you are a series of infinite contradictions within yourself and you would like to understand them so badly that some days you want to scream. You want to rip the inconsistencies out of your body and learn to live simply and whole-heartedly. I know that for you, whole-hearted will always be a transient state. Happiness will always be an ever-moving target. Fulfillment will never be a subway stop that you get off at. It will forever be the chase, the fervor, the constant need for more.

I know you despise these clichés. I know you do not want a heart that is both wild and tame in its most shameless state. I know that you would give it all up in an instant to be one way or another, to not remain split between the storm and the silence within you. I know you get tired of yourself. And I’m sorry – that you’ve ever felt exhausted by the person that you are.

For the fierce women who’ve tried to be tame, I applaud you. For the way you live your lives and for the times you don’t apologize. For the fierceness of your spirit and the strength inside your soul. I applaud you for undergoing life with that fearless and bold-hearted attitude – the one that speaks the mind of so many others like you. The world needs more women like you. The world needs to revel and behold you.

For every fierce woman who’s tried to be tame, I hope you know – there’s a place in this world for wild hearts like yours. And the sooner you stop trying to fight it, the sooner you’re already home.