Notes from the Wolf: A Survivor's Guide to Manipulators

They say a wolf in sheep’s clothing is someone dangerous pretending to be harmless. But here’s the truth you won’t hear in Sunday school or in any of the pop culture clichés littering the digital landscape these days. 

Some wolves wear sheep suits not to deceive, but to survive.

I’ve done it. (Maybe you have, too.) Not because I was a predator who was hiding bad intentions, but because I was surrounded by people who only tolerated softness, compliance, and silence. 

These were people who recoiled from the sharp glint of instinct. Those people didn’t want to love me as they should have. They wanted to train me, so maybe I'd be useful to them later.

So I learned to blend in, because that's what you do when you're still just a kid who's still wholly reliant on others for literally everything. But blending in never made me forget who I was. Here are a few things I learned during my anxiety-ridden formative years zipped inside the fleece.

1. Decent people don't associate healthy boundaries with cruelty

If you know someone who does this, you're likely already nodding along. They're the type who respond to even the most polite “no” like you just ran over their grandmother without even stopping to apologize. Then they cry, sulk, lash out, guilt-trip. That's emotional manipulation at its finest, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. 

People who pull this hot nonsense aren't doing it because they're truly hurt or confused. They’re carefully testing the waters to see just how much guilt it will take to get you to give them their way.

2. No amount of softness will change a narcissist

Narcissists respond to empathy the way sharks respond to blood in the water. They don't smell your kindness and see someone worth loving, admiring, or appreciating. They see a potential energy cache to be taken advantage of at will.

So they play the victim and plead for grace. Then they bite the very hand that offered it the second they think they can get away with it. I used to think I could "nice" my way to a better relationship with people like these and maybe teach them a better way to be.

Spoiler alert. They're simply not capable of it, but they'll happily take as much "nice" as you're willing to dish out before you finally see the light.

What I Wish I Believed About Money (And What I'm Learning Instead)

I've always had to worry about money and think about it way more than I'd like. It's also always managed to elude me, so it's never been the neutral force in my life that it should have been. 

Instead, the concept of money has felt loaded right from the beginning. Emotional. Moral. Personal. 

My potential earning power and job title were literally all that ever mattered about me to my parents, even when I was little. For that reason, it's always been hard to separate the number in my bank account from how I feel about myself as a human being. Not because I think money should define worth, but because the world around me often acts like it does.

I wish I believed instead that money was just energy, the way some people do. That it's normal for it to flow like breath or water — sometimes abundant, sometimes scarce, but never personal. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still working on that (and often failing miserably).

But I'm learning that when we stop viewing money as an emotional verdict, we can start seeing it as a tool instead. A neutral current. A resource to work with, not beg for and judge yourself because of. If you’re struggling to see it that way, too, you may relate to some of what I'm about to say.

I Wish I Felt Allowed to Want Money

Like many people raised without a safety net or a proper support system, I’ve been conditioned to believe there's something wrong with wanting money. Suffering, working yourself too hard for too little, and being satisfied with that is virtuous. Being unwilling to quietly settle for what life (and those around you) have decided you deserve is ingratitude and perhaps even entitlement.

But the truth is, I don’t want piles of money so I can lord it over other people while the world falls apart around me.

I want it so I can breathe easier, sleep more deeply, and give more freely. I want to be able to say "yes" to beauty, travel, generosity, and creativity without feeling guilty for doing so. I want to be that person who can afford to bless a waitress or an Instacart shopper with a $500 tip. And yes, it would be nice to finally stop white-knuckling life for a change.

If you’re also struggling with guilt over wanting more, ask yourself, “What would having more allow me to do, feel, or create?” If you're anything like me, a lot of what comes immediately to mind is probably pretty wholesome. Regardless, there's no shame in wanting your needs to be met. And there's no merit in denying those needs because someone else told you to at one point or another in your life, either.

Fine China and Swine

They said she was mad.

Not with any sentiment as dark as malice, or at least not exactly. They just used that tongue-clucking, tilted-head tone people use when someone stops playing by the rules. When someone removes the lace from the curtains and starts growing wildflowers instead of roses.

“She actually used to be... sort of normal,” the butcher muttered to the baker. “She taught piano. Had that shy, quiet little husband who sold shoes. What was his name again?”

They no longer exactly remember, and maybe that was always the point.

She didn't take much when she left the house on Hazel Street. Just her books, her perfume, and three heavy trunks of clothes she hadn’t worn in years — gowns she once called “ridiculous” and now called “essential.” She also took a single teacup with a crack in it and a chipped plate shaped like a scallop shell. 

She left the wedding china. She'd never actually wanted it anyway.

The farmhouse was already hers, an inheritance from a great-aunt no one remembered. It sat just past the willow grove, just down a little dusty dirt road that likely hadn’t seen a carriage in half a century. The house was crooked, and the roof leaked in four different places. Sometimes crows congregated on the roof after a storm, looking for wayward bugs and other prizes. It was perfect.

The pigs came with the land.

They were half-feral and vaguely pink, with beady dark eyes like muddy marbles. At first, she only watched them from the window, wary. But then one day, she noticed they had been watching her, too, in that way animals do when they know something about you that you don’t yet know yourself. First, she fed them. Then, she talked to them, tentatively and quietly. Then, she danced with them in the golden hour, as it seemed like the most appropriate time for such goings-on.

“They say I’m mad,” she told them one evening, reclining on the grass in a dress the color of old, dried blood. “But the truth is, I’m just finished.”

And she was. She was finished apologizing for her voice, her laugh, and her hunger for all sorts of exciting things. Finished folding herself into half-measures and polite silences. She was definitely finished saying "thank you" when what she really wanted to say was "don’t touch me."

The pigs didn’t answer, but one of them placed a gentle snout in her lap in a silent show of support. That was enough.

The townspeople took to whispering when they passed her gate. She never locked it, because she didn’t have to, because no one dared go past the willow trees. “She feeds them by hand,” someone whispered. “I hear she even lets them into the house,” hissed another. One woman claimed she saw candles in every window, all lit at once, like a séance or a wedding was going on inside. Maybe even something worse.

“She’s always alone,” the grocer’s wife said. “Except for the pigs.”

That part was true.

But she liked being alone. (For now, anyway.) She liked the silence of wide rooms with no one in them who was asking her to shrink for no good reason. She could light all the candles she wanted simply because it pleased her. She wore perfume because it made her feel like a badly-kept secret. She poured red wine or Earl Grey tea into fine china and sat on the porch at dusk, surrounded by soft oinks and rich golden light while crows squawked in the distance.

Sometimes she laughed. Loud, unfiltered laughter that rose through the trees and made birds scatter. “She was always a little touched,” the librarian said. “Even before the divorce.” No one ever mentions what happened to the husband. Not anymore.

But occasionally, someone swears they saw him at the edge of the grove once. They say he had mud on his cuffs and a nasty scratch down one cheek. His eyes were wide and startled like someone who had seen a ghost that looked an awful lot like regret.

No one asked questions. No one really wanted answers. Meanwhile, she lived.

She embroidered things that didn’t really need embroidery, just because. She read poetry to the pigs. She bathed beneath the stars, unashamed. Sometimes she wore the crown she made from rusted nails and ivy and laughed like a woman who finally understood the joke.

They said she was mad.

But the pigs followed her everywhere, and the wind listened when she felt like talking. And every time she raised her cracked teacup to the setting sun, the whole world paused, just for a second, to see what she would do next.

* This freewriting exercise is part of the full moon edition of the Feast of the Wandering Pen, a lunar-centric writing challenge about consistency, creativity, and storytelling.

I Didn't Steal This Joy, I Earned It

If there's one thing I really miss about childhood, it's how experiencing pure, unadulterated joy felt so effortless. I knew what it was without needing to name it. It also felt natural –– something I could count on defaulting to instead of having to fight for it.

I think I felt this most when my dad would take my brother and me to the beach for the afternoon. The ocean seemed like it went on forever, and I played for what felt like hours. I'd dig my toes into the wet sand, letting the cold water chase my feet and retreat again. I'd spend hours building woefully deficient sandcastles or searching tidepools for sea anemones and tiny crabs.

I wasn’t ever worried about what came next. I wasn’t afraid of anyone watching me. I wasn’t trying to be good. I wasn’t afraid of being bad. I just was, and it was amazing.

I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since, and I'd be lying if I said that hasn't shaped the arc of my life. That quiet, open sense of being safe inside my own body. Of being allowed to take up space, feel the sun on my skin, and just exist without shame, fear, or apology.

And lately, after many years and more healing than I ever thought I needed, I’ve recaptured the ability to feel this way again. Not every moment or about everything. Not even every day, but certainly often enough that I've noticed it. But here’s the strange thing. When it finally showed up after years of wishing and searching, I didn’t embrace it like the long-lost friend it was. 

I mistrusted it, completely and thoroughly.

There's a certain guilt that settles in when life is good

And by good, I definitely don't mean perfect or even relatively free of complications. (My childhood wasn't like that, and neither is my adult life.) I mean, you actually have enough space to catch your breath when you need to. Things are good enough that your nervous system doesn’t feel like it’s on high alert 24/7. You may even feel safe at times.

But if you're anything like me, that moment can be followed by something unexpected. A little voice that whispers, "Are you allowed to feel this good, though? Did you really earn this peace?"

It’s a sneaky kind of self-doubt –– that subtle fear that the other shoe is about to drop, you’ve cheated the system somehow, and now the peace cops are coming for you. But over time, I’ve started to realize something important. 

There's no rule that says you have to earn joy by suffering first. But if you have suffered? Then yes, you’ve earned every damn second of peace you find afterward.

So, if you're also going through a season where you've finally managed to find even a little bit of peace or joy in your life, but also struggle to embrace it? This is for you.

A Place at the Table

There’s a certain kind of waiting that doesn’t come with a countdown. There's no circled date on the calendar to count down to. No confirmation email. There won't eventually be a light knock on the front door to let you know it’s finally arrived.

Instead, it’s the kind of waiting that feels like static under the skin — like a faint humming in the walls. And though you don’t know what you’re waiting for exactly, you do know you’re waiting. You know it the way you know rain is coming, even if the sky is still clear and blue.

I feel like I've been on a first-name basis with that kind of waiting lately. I'm not waiting for a person. I'm not expecting a package (or at least not currently). But I know I'm waiting for something. I just can't name it or identify it.

Sometimes I think I hear it. There are soft footsteps in the distance and maybe even the rustle of a hem brushing the ground. So I’ve lit the candles. I’ve cracked the window. I’ve tidied up the space around me to the best of my ability, the way people do when company’s coming.

This kind of waiting doesn’t look like much from the outside. On the inside, it's a different story. It's present when my dreams shift tone, color, and content overnight. It has an invisible hand that directs my attention toward certain books, songs, and vibes.

Sometimes I think it has a scent, as well. Some days, that scent is a mixture of ozone and rose petals. Other days, maybe almond and salt.

Whatever it is, it lingers in the corners of the room and settles into the folds of the day. It inspires me to light a second stick of incense –– not because the first wasn’t enough, but because something just plain wants more smoke in the air. A thicker veil between what already is and what still might be if I keep still enough for long enough.

I'm trying not to name the unknown thing too soon. I’ve made that mistake before and decided too early what a thing must be, only to discover it was something else entirely. Sometimes, it's something better, or stranger, or softer. Sometimes it turns out to be something not meant for me after all, leaving me disappointed and deflated.

So this time I'm trying to exercise patience and presence. And the kind of faith that doesn’t need to be told what’s coming to justify leaving the light on for it, just in case it shows up in the middle of the night.

Thankfully, I also feel like there's something sacred about preparing for what hasn’t yet arrived. Setting the table for someone who may or may not come. Choosing the best dishes in preparation for a coming celebration. Folding the napkins. Lighting the good candles.

Maybe that’s what this particular type of waiting really is. A quiet honoring of possibility, and maybe even a form of devotion. To the next season of my life and to the version of myself that’s still out there somewhere, trying to find the door. I don’t know her name yet, but I want her to feel welcome.

I think that’s why I’ve been moving slower, listening harder, refusing to fill the silence just for the sake of making noise like so many other people out there do. There’s a certain peace in the spaces between things, and I want to make sure I hear what she has to say when she finally sits down.

So I keep doing the small, quiet things that feel like invitations –– writing down dreams even when they make no sense, walking circles in the garden at 11 o'clock in the morning, whispering yes into the flame when no one is around.

Because something is coming. And whatever it is, I don’t want to miss it because I was too busy trying to define it. So I wait. And I stay lit. And I write, because that’s my way of keeping the door ajar.

* Another candle lit on the table for the Feast of the Wandering Pen, a lunar journey through creative reflection in all its many forms.