wild hearts cant be broken.

wild hearts cant be broken was my favorite movie as a child, and for whatever reason, the sentence has been on repeat in my head the past couple of days. words do that, become a scrolling marquee in my head and repeat themselves over and over, until i accidentally start whispering them during conversations. i dont know if you've ever seen the film. its a good one. i dont remember why i loved it so much, except for there was something so beautiful in her wild heart and her perservance to continue on with her dreams, even when she starts to go blind, even when her world lost its color. in the end she disproves everyone and fulfills her dreams, even when it seems impossible and even when her world has become black. i know it seems cheesy and cliche, but in real life thats a hard thing to do. holding onto your dreams isnt easy. actualizing them is next to impossible. keeping your wild heart is probably even harder, because it means being completely true to yourself and telling big bad society they cant tell you who to be.

my mom called me free bird when i was little. she saw my wild heart from the time i was two years old and wearing the same skirt everyday for a month. she let me wear pink fishnets to church until i was eighteen. she let me dye my hair every color under the sun. she let me wear thigh high boots and MC hammer pants to school through elementary school. she let me hide in the bathtub for hours and hours and read books over and over. she let me cover every inch of wall and ceiling space in my room with song lyrics written in size 6 font, in posters of half nude jim morrison, poem after poem, paintings and posters, until not one inch of white was left. she let me believe in myself. she told me it was okay that i was different. she told me that i was creative and beautiful, and that people might tell me otherwise and might not understand. she could tell that people would not understand me. so she told me early that no matter what, to hold onto my wild heart.

im grateful my mom understood my wild heart and its possibilities. im also grateful my mom taught me how to tame it. i think modern society tells you to hold onto your individuality, no matter what, that you should prize it above all things. my mom told me my wild heart was beautiful, but it was only beautiful if i used it to help other people. she saw that it had to be tamed, and steered in the right direction. instead of feeling different, rejected, better than others, my mom taught me that a wild heart is a gift that must be used for good, to understand others, to love others, and to make the world a more beautiful and loving place. the artist doesnt have the right to be elevated above society, the artist is not part of a mysterious elite that is more privileged in their view of the world. rather, the artist has a responsibility to society, to show them beauty and to help people see the world more fully with that special gift, just as people are all obligated to help with their own personal gifts in whatever way they can. in alma it says "bridle your passions, that ye may be filled with love." i dont think i understood that fully, and maybe i still dont. but i think im getting closer. my wild heart has been bridled a bit, shaped and changed and disciplined. i dont think its a bad thing. it has enabled me to love better, with my whole self, rather than haphazardly being subject to the whims and emotions of my wild heart.

my mom told me that wild hearts are a gift, but not everything. she always told me that above all, i must value love and people. i think that is an important point, because a wild heart becomes a hazard if valued above what matters most, if it becomes your way of dividing yourself from humanity, rather than connecting. i think everyone has a wild heart in one way or another, and i love that. love your wild heart. nurture it. wild hearts can't be broken. i believe that. i believe in following your dreams. i believe its ok to wear pink fishnets to church, to sing like no one is listening, to dance with all you got, to flip the bird to social norms at times, to love books with all you have and become friends with the characters. but more importantly than any of that, i believe that wild hearts can be used to make the world a more beautiful place for us all to reside. i think that is the rest of the sentence. wild hearts can't be broken, they can be used for infinite amounts of goodness.