Since I was a little girl, I had the tendency to speak metaphorically, I didn’t recognise this about myself, and really I am only just noticing it about myself now. Probably the main cause of why I am so often misunderstood. I don’t really know how to communicate any other way. I spent many hours lost in fiction books and the language became my preset, my default. It made complete sense to me and I could not grasp the fact that to others I was an anomaly.
One of the things I shared as a child, that upset and confused many people was my depiction of how I wanted to live and die.
I told a few select people that when it was my time, I wanted to be eaten alive by tigers. So, I see now where the concern came from. As an adult, I would be a little freaked by this statement. I learnt very quickly not to share that information, but didn’t know why it was the wrong thing to say.
Now I am equipped with the words to explain, I would like to expand on my reasons for saying this.
Life is precious, life is to be lived to the fullest.
I was born a ‘wild’ child. I knew that I did not fit in and conform with ‘society’ and I was destined never to fit in. I inherently knew this from a very very young age.
Living with the tigers was a nod to where I felt like I would thrive. In the wild, ‘Where the wild things are’. Running with the tigers would be a thrill, basic and instinctive, pure survival and sense of belonging. Tigers are solitary in nature, as was I, despite appearing a very confident and social creature, it was only ever a mask I applied day after day.
I was terrified of my life being meaningless and lost within the confines and structures that society have created and forced upon us.
What was the meaning of life? Why were we even on this earth, an insignificant rock that spun in never ending circles, no destination set, just repeating and repeating the same insufferable cycle.
The thought of consistency and repetition terrified me. The thought of meaninglessness even more so.
Running with the tigers was the dream of existing outside of these parameters and being with nature, worshipping mother earth and all her wholesomeness.
My death, again, I didn’t want my death to reflect the inevitable life I would have to live. If anything, let me go out the same way I came into this world, upside down and inside out.
Being eaten alive would finally expose what I held within so tightly and buried so deep, that maybe just maybe, I would be understood afterall.
Me, Myself and Who am I? 