a goddamn cheetah

I’m currently reading this book called “Untamed” by Glennon Doyle.

I want to share these two excerpts that already touched my soul. Reading these lines, I felt safe. I realized that there is a place for me and my wildness in the world. May they help you to release some of yours.

Untamed: Prologue - Doyle, G. (2020)

“I watched Tabitha [the cheetah] gnawing that steak in the zoo dirt and thought: Day after day this wild animal chases dirty pink bunnies down the well-worn, narrow path they cleared for her. Never looking left or right. Never catching that damn bunny, settling instead for a store-bought steak and the distracted approval of sweaty strangers. Obeying the zookeeper’s every command, just like Minnie, the Lab, she’s been trained to believe she is. Unaware that if she remembered her wildness—just for a moment—she could tear those zookeepers to shreds.

When Tabitha finished her steak, the zookeeper opened a gate that led to a small fenced field. Tabitha walked through and the gate closed behind her. The zookeeper picked up her megaphone again and asked for questions. A young girl, maybe nine years old, raised her hand and asked, «Isn’t Tabitha sad? Doesn’t she miss the wild?»

«I’m sorry, I can’t hear you,» the zookeeper said. «Can you ask that again?»

The child’s mother said, louder, «She wants to know if Tabitha misses the wild.»

The zookeeper smiled and said, «No. Tabitha was born here. She doesn’t know any different. She’s never even seen the wild. This is a good life for Tabitha. She’s much safer here than she would be out in the wild.»

While the zookeeper began sharing facts about cheetahs born into captivity, my older daughter, Tish, nudged me and pointed to Tabitha. There, in that field, away from Minnie and the zookeepers, Tabitha’s posture had changed. Her head was high, and she was stalking the periphery, tracing the boundaries the fence created. Back and forth, back and forth, stopping only to stare somewhere beyond the fence. It was like she was remembering something. She looked regal. And a little scary.

Tish whispered to me, «Mommy. She turned wild again.»

I nodded at Tish and kept my eyes on Tabitha as she stalked. I wished I could ask her, «What’s happening inside you right now?» I knew what she’d tell me. She’d say, «Something’s off about my life. I feel restless and frustrated. I have this hunch that everything was supposed to be more beautiful than this. I imagine fenceless, wide-open savannas. I want to run and hunt and kill. I want to sleep under an ink-black, silent sky filled with stars. It’s all so real I can taste it.»

Then she’d look back at the cage, the only home she’s ever known. She’d look at the smiling zookeepers, the bored spectators, and her panting, bouncing, begging best friend, the labrador.

She’d sigh and say, «I should be grateful. I have a good enough life here. It’s crazy to long for what doesn’t even exist.»

I’d say:

Tabitha. You are not crazy. You are a goddamn cheetah.”

[…]

Untamed: Sparks - Doyle, G. (2020)

“Ten is when we learn how to be good girls and boys. Ten is when children begin to let go of who they are in order to become what the world expects them to be. Ten is when our formal taming begins.

Ten is when the world sat me down, told me to be quiet, and pointed toward my cages:

• These are the feelings you may express.

• This is the version of womanhood you will mimic.

• This is the body you must strive for.

• These are the things you will believe.

• These are the people you may love.

• Those are the people you will fear.

• This is the kind of life you will want.

Make yourself fit. You’ll be uncomfortable at first, but don’t worry—eventually, you’ll forget you’re caged. Soon this will just feel like ‘life.’

I wanted to be a good girl, so I tried to control myself. I chose a personality, a body, a faith, and a sexuality so tiny I had to hold my breath to fit myself inside. Then I promptly became very sick.

When I became a good girl, I also became a bulimic. None of us can hold our breath all the time. Bulimia was where I exhaled. It was where I refused to comply, indulged my hunger, and expressed my fury. I became animalistic during my daily binges. Then I’d drape myself over the toilet and purge because a good girl must stay very small to fit inside her cages. She must leave no outward evidence of her hunger. Good girls aren’t hungry, furious, or wild. All of the things that make a woman human are a good girl’s dirty secret.

Back then, I suspected that my bulimia meant that I was crazy. In high school, I did a stint in a mental hospital, and my suspicion was confirmed.

I understand myself differently now.

I was just a caged girl made for wide-open skies.

I wasn’t crazy. I was a goddamn cheetah.”