Undomesticated

To be what I would consider a “free spirit” has much difficulty and acceptance in a world where most people feel the intense need to follow with the flow and ease of a conformed society. I do not follow into conformity. Nor do I consider myself a leader. I just want to be. I want to explore with unblocked curiosity, to discover the vast complexities of my own self so that I can understand and gain wisdom to propel myself forward on my journey here and ever after.

I am forty-four years old. Some might say that I am in a crisis, midlife. Some call it the transition period, some will call it crazy, and some will say I’m blindsided, in a fog, going through menopause, or whatever they like, but it makes no difference to me. As Dr. Seuss’s delicate yet powerful wisdom has long been engrained in my head, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those that mind don’t matter and those that matter don’t mind” (Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904–1991). Whatever this is, it is changing me. It is challenging me. It is charging me. I like it and invite it because without change is stagnation, and then, with stagnation, you wilt and rot. How grossly unbecoming. Someone once said, “The land of familiarity belongs to the dead.” That disgusted me. I want to grow and be in the light, to live unbridled and to love, without boundary, every breathing moment. I want to live life against the grain, the road less traveled, all of it, so that I do not fall into routine (into that societal flow that utterly bores me). I do not want to be normal and ordinary. I want to be abnormal in a wild yet poetic way and live an extraordinary life. I will not be categorized. I will not join one-minded membership groups. I am not egocentric by any means. I just want to explore and keep exploring. The idea of numbing personal contemplation by means of integrating the self into a common thought group or membership of well-regulated structure fucks with me. To me, it declares, “Think only like us,” “be exactly like us,” “behave like us,” and that strips away the very voice I want pronounced and outspoken with individualized acuity. I need this voice to speak and seek/contemplate/dream. I need it to proclaim independence so I can independently evolve. I am never done.