Be Liberated.
Usually changes happen slowly so small over time that you look back and wonder, how did I even get here? Where did I start? Wasn’t I always this way? But this was not one of those times. The moment all the fear of cursing, the stigma of it all, went out the window, the door flew open so hard and fast that it caught my husband off guard and left me slightly embarrassed, only for a moment.
There I was, laying in the bedroom of a man I just met, face smashed into a massage table yelling obscenities as my husband looked over in slight horror at the man stabbing me repeatedly with a needle who was mouthing to him, “Should I stop?” My husband blankly dazed at him, shrugged his shoulders and mouthed, “I. don’t. know.”
It was the rib tattoo I was getting. The symbol of my daughter ironically enough, that kicked down the door that was hiding all my cursing behind. After I left that night, they’d slowly slip out here and there and with trepidation. I’d still try to hide the fact that I wanted to say, “This fucking sucks.” Or, “Quit being an asshole.” in times that it was justified and there were no other words to really get my point across. At least not without sounding like a Shakespearian play.
And I don’t know what the conversation that happened where I realized this, but it was saying how, “We don’t say that word, it’s a bad word.” And it hit me. How is a word inherently bad? It’s an inanimate object. It’s something we created. So how then is it bad? It’s implying that anyone who says said “bad word” is also bad. A deviant. Someone who is not worth getting to know. It’s placing a stereotype on someone simply for the adjectives they choose.
Society asks you to fit into this neat little mold. To make yourself smaller in order to be an accepted person. To tone down your life and your speech. To wear mundane clothing when you really want to wear a rainbow. To keep your hair “natural” and your skin clean of tattoos. And definitely, most definitely, society asks you to stay within your given gender role. Society doesn’t just ask you this, it demands it a bit quietly and a bit in your face. From early on and far into your nineties. And it has to stop.
Does this require cussing and telling someone to “leave you the fuck alone?” No. Not at all. It requires you to live YOUR life. Live your messy, colorful, life that only belongs to you. Cuss or don’t cuss. Wear dresses if you are a guy, or don’t. But don’t stop living the life that brings you ultimate happiness simply to fit into a smaller you. Someone else’s skin, chosen for you.
Katelyn