Meet the Wild Child. Meet Me.

I find myself dancing along the edges of a passionate life. Sure, I dip a toe into that glorious ocean now and again, but I have yet to find the courage to fully submerse myself in it, and here's a secret:

I long for it.

Although I have many passionate moments for which to be grateful, I yearn to live a whirlwind of a passionate life, with no regrets.

A worthy question would be, "So what's stopping you?" As a wonderful blogger once said, "Life is a choose-your-own-adventure book." That has stuck with me, so why aren't I choosing the adventure of miraculous, passionate, wild life? Because the wild child lives inside me; I feel her every day. And she whispers, "You're heart is too closed still. Open up. Break. Break open."

Like a bird fluttering against the inconsistent boundaries of my heart, determined to break free, live free, live wild and precious and unfettered. Determined, on the verge of angry at being caged for so very long. That's the wild child; that is me. Trapped, but in a gilded cage of my own making; a not-so-subtle cage of deer-caught-in-the-headlights fear, shyness, inhibitions. Fear of giving my heart to the world and never getting it back (and deep down, that wild child whispers, "A free heart is better than a closed one. Do you really want it back?")

I'm working on it. In two weeks, I'm 25, and this last quarter of a century has certainly not been awash. See, the wild child, she's not content to sit and wait; she tiptoes over that boundary more and more all the time, creating holes, dancing in the surfs of passion. I may be afraid, but that particular ocean laps at the boundaries of my heart daily, breaking those edges down as subtly as the Pacific turns high cliffs into grains of sand.

Its only a matter of time, and when I'm tossed into the waves of this life I want so badly, I will not tread water, but instead plunge into the depths of passion, delight, eternity, wonder. I will embrace the wild child who is the heart of who I am, who I wish to become, and from those moments, my heart will cease to leave my sleeve, free, glorious, vulnerable.

Because a vulnerable heart is far better than one which is caged.