You are a goddamn Cheetah

”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 zookeepers 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. 

While the zookeeper began sharing facts about cheetahs born into captivity, there in the field, away from Minnie and the zookeepers, Tabitha’s posture 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. 

I wished I could ask her, “What’s happening inside you right now?” I knew 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 Lab. 
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.”

An excerpt from Untamed by Glennon Doyle.

Love Brene Brown and her new Podcast. Glennon Doyle interview on Untamed, full of quotable, metaphorical moments.