Unleashed

Nightbitch through an Ex-Mormon lens

My personal paradise is the mental stimulation of an audiobook paired with the motion of physical activity. My ADHD requires me to be in motion in order to absorb information and currently I read with reckless abandon. 

February in Arizona is outdoor-living weather, so most days find me roaming the streets with a book in my ear. Our story starts on one such day a couple of weeks ago:

The wide expanse of blue Arizona sky stretched before me and my footsteps crunched along the rough asphalt as one book ended with a “We hope you’ve enjoyed this Audible production,” So I swiped my phone from my pocket to scroll to the Libby app and grab the next title on my list. Nightbitch. My thing this last year is to start a popular or recommended book with zero background information. Not even the genre. I didn’t know there was a movie version of this book with Amy Adams. I knew nothing.

I pressed play, quickening my pace as the narration unfolded at 2x speed. The green expanse of the neighborhood golf course rolled by. My breath, synchronized with my steps, punctuated the air as I walked. The scent of orange blossoms drifted from the yards, mixing with the scent of freshly cut grass. Nirvana. The book began with an unsettling strangeness, a creeping unease that grew with each passing moment. Hairs prickled on my neck, a chill sweeping over me. My breath quickened, not from physical exertion, but from a profound unease. I stopped, rooted to the spot.

The cliché of an author 'getting inside your head' became a visceral reality. I felt momentarily violated, as if the author had somehow accessed my subconscious, scrolled through my life, and even read my recent writings. The raw, unfiltered portrayal of young family dynamics was unnervingly accurate. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes as I felt seen, understood. I devoured the book over the next 24 hours, unable to pause, my eyes welling with tears at its poignant truths.

The book held me rapt. I went through the motions of life while immersed in the story. I fought for listening time and pounded the pavement at every opportunity, logging miles down familiar neighborhood streets. Walking and listening, I was once again stopped in my tracks by this line: "How evil to praise women for giving up each and every dream."

...My feet started moving again, a little faster this time, not just from the residual energy of the walk, but from a surge of something else. Recognition. Fury. A deep, resonant yes. The words echoed through me like a seismic shift. It isn’t just a line in a book; it is a wrecking ball to the carefully constructed narrative I'd grown up with.

Growing up Mormon, the ideal woman was a mother, a wife, a nurturer. Self-sacrifice wasn't just encouraged; it was glorified. We were taught that our greatest contribution was to create and raise righteous children, to build the kingdom of God within the walls of our homes. Our dreams, our ambitions, our individual identities, were secondary, if not entirely lost to the needs of the family and the church– a plight not unique to Mormonism.

That line in "Nightbitch" shattered that facade. It exposed the insidious nature of the societal ideology of traditional gender roles and masked the suffocating reality of giving up your own potential. It is a stark reminder of the countless women, including myself, who had been subtly, and not so subtly, coerced into sacrificing their dreams on the altar of patriarchal expectations.

The tears that pricked my eyes weren't just from the emotional resonance of the story; they were tears of recognition, of validation, of grief for the dreams I'd once buried. They were also tears of hope, of a newfound sense of freedom.

The desert landscape, once a backdrop to my internal struggle, now felt like a symbol of my own resilience. Like the hardy desert plants that thrived in harsh conditions, I am learning to bloom in the arid landscape of my newfound independence. I wasn't just walking anymore; I was marching. Confirmed my resolve to reclaim my narrative as I give myself permission to dream again. Not the dreams prescribed by a patriarchal religion, but the dreams that burned within me, the dreams that were uniquely and undeniably mine.