Wild, Living Woman: A Reflection on Being Witnessed
For years, I shaped myself to fit what others could hold. But what happens when the version of me I’ve been protecting is the one who finally wants to be seen? This is a story about voice, vulnerability, and the quiet reckoning of no longer waiting.
— Calla Hart
She didn’t ask permission to feel everything. She just remembered who she was.
For a long time, I shaped myself to fit the space I was given. I don’t know if that was taught to me directly, or if it was something I absorbed in the pauses—between my mother’s practicality, between being the “responsible one,” between hearing messages like “If you’ve been given a bed, fit yourself to the size of the sheet.”
At the time, I think that message was about money. About being careful. About living within limits. But I wonder now if it echoed into other areas. Into how I learned to stay inside the emotional boundaries that others were comfortable with—even when they were too small for the life I felt rising inside me.
The truth is, I’ve always been someone who moved beyond the edge of the sheet. I’ve stretched. Reached. Risen. Even when it was hard.
There was a time between relationships—between the heartbreak of what was and the hope of what might be—when I met a woman in Ecuador who said something that pierced right through me. She told me I was one of the most alive people she had ever met.
And I remember thinking: That might be the best compliment I’ve ever received.
Later, a coach encouraged me to include it in my bio. Not my résumé. Not my accomplishments. Just this: I am alive. A woman guided by what feels right in her body, what aligns with her values, and what supports the life and legacy she’s here to build. Aliveness, to me, is about more than energy—it’s intentional. It’s the moment-to-moment choice to live with presence, care, and purpose. That line stayed in my bio for a long time. And even now, without it written down, I still carry it as a compass.
I’ve never forgotten that.
And when I came across a piece of writing by CBMeditates recently, something cracked open again. It spoke of the “wild, living woman”—the one who isn’t meant to be tamed or turned into someone’s project, someone’s goddess, someone’s “manageable” partner. The one who doesn’t ask permission to feel everything.
It stopped me in my tracks. Because I think she’s still here.
And I think I’ve been protecting other people from seeing her.
I’ve been writing my story under a pen name. Not because I’m ashamed, and not because I couldn’t handle being exposed. But because I’ve been trying to shield the man I love from the full impact of my truth.
But sometimes truth and protection can’t coexist.
And I’m starting to ask:
What would it mean to stop waiting for someone else to be ready for me to be seen?
What would it mean to choose truth over comfort, even if it shakes the ground a little?
I don’t know when or how I’ll take off the pen name. But I do know this:
There’s a wild, living woman inside me. And she might be done waiting.
Reflection Prompts
Where in my life have I conformed to someone else’s emotional comfort zone?
What would it look like to live as “the most alive version” of myself again?
Where am I still dimming to avoid being too much, too raw, too real?
Who am I protecting—and what would happen if I trusted them (or myself) to handle the truth?
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Read the follow up post: The One Who Might Witness Me: On Being Fully Seen and Fully Loved
