"Do I Need Permission to Wear This Symbol?"
A Midnight Conversation on Belonging and Borrowing
The Email You Almost Sent
You've had the tab open for three days. The tiger pendant. You keep coming back to it. Not because you're sure, but because you're unsure. There's a question forming that feels too messy for a search engine: "Am I allowed to wear this?"
You don't have a personal connection to tiger symbolism in any traditional sense. You didn't grow up with these stories. You're not from a place where tigers roam in mythology or reality. And yet... something about it resonates. But does resonance give you permission? Or is that just cultural appropriation dressed up in sincere clothing?
This hesitation is where we begin. Not with answers, but with the quality of the question itself. The fact that you're asking means you're already engaging with the symbol more thoughtfully than someone who would wear it without a second thought. The tension you feel—between attraction and apprehension—is actually the most respectful starting point.
Let's sit with that tension for a moment. Not to resolve it, but to examine its texture. What exactly are you worried about misrepresenting? The symbol itself? The culture it comes from? Your own authenticity? Or is it something about wearing a symbol of wildness while living a largely domesticated life?
What if the attraction isn't to the tiger as a cultural artifact, but to the tiger as a feeling—a feeling of having uncharted territory within yourself that you don't know how to navigate? What if the symbol serves as an external reference point for an internal experience that has no native language?
This changes the permission question. It becomes less about cultural lineage and more about personal integrity. The question shifts from "Do I have the right to wear this?" to "Can I wear this with honesty about what it means to me, even if that meaning is incomplete, personal, and evolving?"
