WILL & WILLFUL : A COLLAB

PART 2

With thanks to the breakfast club, and my soul sisters

Because we live in a patriarchal society where womanhood is so often equated with our external image and sensuality, it is easy to adopt a male perspective of wildness. We can fall into the trap of believing that wildness is synonymous with a performance of sexuality as if wild hair or being over-sexualized equals liberation.

But our freedom was never meant to be defined by how desirable we are to others. True wildness is not about what we look like, I have met more liberated hijabis than I can count, women who are not enslaved to others' approval, but stand firm in their beliefs with profound strength of character, resilience, and unshakeable boundaries.

Because women are complex, multifaceted creatures, the true definition of wildness looks different for each one of us.

And it is deeply personal.

For some, it is finding balance in the quiet, messy, beautiful details of our everyday lives. It can be as simple as "More bush, no shave," or as profound as choosing to remain child-free. It can be finally embracing who you are at sixty, guilt-free and without explanation. It can be dancing in the kitchen when no one is watching, singing loudly even when you're tone-deaf, or expressing your individuality through the way you dress, wear your hair, create, and move through the world.

It can be writing the stories you have carried inside you for years, speaking your truth without doubt and fear, and taking off the masks you've worn for so long that you've forgotten what your own face feels like.

It can be choosing solo travel despite the warnings and fears of well-meaning adults, or staying home in your PJs, binge-watching Korean soapies because that is what brings you joy.

It can be falling in love with yourself again, detaching within your relationship for your own wellbeing, or moving through the world without feeling that you need fixing.

It can be saying no without explaining yourself. Saying yes to pleasure without guilt (Yes, I'm visual too). Changing your mind. Outgrowing people, places, and parts of yourself that no longer feel authentic.

It can be allowing yourself to be sensual without performing sexuality for anyone. To feel beautiful without needing to be looked at.

It can be choosing to laugh loudly, speak your mind, and take up the fight against femicide. To take up space in your own home, your workplace, or just on the road (Beep Beep mf). To be ambitious without excuse, to be soft, to be fierce, to be both.

The point is, we get to choose who we are and what our definition of wildness is.

That is freedom… The freedom to be who we are.

And that is wild.

So, instead of making our image and our sexuality the focus, instead of allowing our wildness to be defined by booty and boobs, lashes and lipstick, the male gaze, or the mediocrity of expectations imposed upon us, let it be whatever inspires us to become more of ourselves.

Let it be the parts of us that feel alive.

The parts that create, explore, question, laugh, sing, dance, desire, rest, and refuse to be contained, with faith and belief at the core.

That is our wildness.

And we owe no one an apology for it.

It is time we chose who we want to be, within the confines of the life we have created for ourselves or beyond... if we so choose.