Welcome to Wild Cozy Free!

What to expect, what not to expect, and a little bit about me.

I wanted to wait until I was ready.

But I know that’s not how I’m meant to start this journey.

I wanted to spend months designing the perfect logo, coming up with the perfect title, and even choosing the exact right font. (I’m actually grateful that there aren’t as many font options as I expected there to be. The decision fatigue would have knocked me out.)

I wanted to craft a carefully curated offering for you. I wanted to strike just the right tone and say all the right things using all the right words that would inevitably impress you.

But really — I don’t want to do any of that. I’m tired of doing that.

This space isn’t meant to be perfectly curated.

Or even intentionally imperfect.

Just honest.

The day I started toying with the idea of writing a personal blog, words started pouring out of me faster than ever before. It was like my mind got the message that I could finally say whatever I wanted to, without worrying about the correct format.

I’m good at brainstorming and free writing, but all of my writing typically falls into one category: play, novel, essay, song, or maybe a poem. The only works I’ve ever widely shared are fully crafted essays and plays. I hope to share the novels one day, once I finish them. The song lyrics and poems are typically just for me or close friends. The unfiltered stuff.

The most unfiltered stuff is tucked away in my notes app. The writing that I know probably won’t ever make it into a future play, novel, essay, song, or poem. The writing that I won’t assign to a character, or fit into a dramatic arc. The thoughts I jot down when I’m waiting for the train. The things that pop into my head when I’m listening to a podcast or a moody playlist on one of my hot girl walks. The anxieties that keep me up when all I want to do is sleep.

This blog will be a home for those thoughts. Musings and reflections about battling depression and anxiety, longing for more peace and freedom, exploring my bisexuality, navigating life as a highly sensitive artist, wrestling with perfectionism, learning to trust myself, and more. My first entry might be about my past selves. I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately.

I should probably tell you a bit about my current self first though, right?

Here are a few things you’d learn about me if we bonded at a dinner party —

• I’m obsessed with Gilmore Girls.

• Making reservations is my love language.

• Cozy dinners or pizza on the floor > clubbing and going out late.

• I’ve been a pescatarian since I was 17, and was a vegetarian for a year before that.

• I was really shy as a child. Friends who have only met me in the past ten years or so have a lot of trouble believing that.

• I grew up very religious (Baptist Christian), but I’m more spiritual these days.

• I firmly identify as a 90s child, even though I was only a toddler for the latter half of the decade. I’ve always identified as a millennial. Particularly as an Elder Millennial (shoutout to Iliza Schlesinger) even though I’m literally on the cusp of Gen Z.

Here’s what you would learn about me if you opened up an alumni newsletter, attended a panel I was speaking on, or even met me in a theater lobby and heard my well-rehearsed elevator pitch —

“Alexa Juanita Jordan (she/her) is a writer, marketing consultant, and executive director of the Juanita James Memorial Scholarship Foundation (in memory of her late grandmother.) She writes about mental health, the grey area of the #metoo movement, reproductive justice, the COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustice, self-discovery, and more. Her work was recently published in Smith and Kraus’ Best Monologues of 2022, and Resistance is Fertile (a chapbook supporting reproductive rights.) She is also a 2022 Premiere Stages Semifinalist (35 out of 655 submissions.) Her plays have been produced at various theaters across both the Northeast and Midwest.

Alexa is on the board of directors at CultureHub, an art and technology community, along with the leadership coalition at Artemisia Theatre, a feminist theater organization aiming to be at the forefront of the fight for women and female-identifying people through outstanding performances that push the envelope. She also enjoys volunteering with her alma maters.”

In her writing, Glennon Doyle outlines the difference between her representative and her real self. In her 2nd memoir ‘Love Warrior’, she explains,

"I just always felt that there were two of me. There was the real me, and then there was my representative that I sent out into the world who stuck to the script. That voice that when someone says, 'How are you?", and you're really not good, it says 'fine.”

I’m well aware that the concept of women unmasking their real, authentic selves isn’t original (even though it’s still relatively quite new.) That’s a good thing, a really good thing; that so many of us are finally taking up space and showing up as our full selves.

Instead of shutting myself down and convincing myself that I have nothing new to contribute to that conversation, I’m going to defy my inner critic and take up some space of my own.

I’m going to slowly strip myself of shame. I’m going to let my wild, cozy, free self roam, say what she wants to say, and see where that takes us. I hope you’ll join me, and bring your wild, cozy, free self along for the ride.

I’m not here to teach you anything new about yourself, or the world for that matter. I’m just here to share the thoughts that I usually keep to myself* about myself, and the world around me. An imperfect offering of validation and truth.

(*Myself + my inner circle and fiercest supporters. Thanks for putting up with me celebrating me, and reminding me that my worth is tied to who I am, not what I do.)

I don’t need a million subscribers. It’s okay if you don’t read every single post. As I wrote in the playwrights note for my very first play, FINE, “if just one person resonates with one line, I'll be happy. If there are just a few "me too" moments, where someone sees themselves, or feels recognized…”

But if you do subscribe…

You can expect a short or long-form personal essay once a week. Some will be more thought out, and consist of topics that have been on my mind for a while. Others will read like diary entries written when the world is quiet and my mind is loud. Maybe I’ll write more frequently, eventually.

You can definitely expect a lot of Glennon Doyle and Brené Brown references, and some quotes from what I’m watching, reading, and listening to.

Don’t expect too many updates from my representative self — if any. If you want to learn more from her and support my more curated work, head over to alexajuanitajordan.com.

I’ll close out with what “wild, cozy, free” means to me. It’s a state of mind, more than anything. A vibe, if you will. I’ll explain it to you as if we were up late* eating pizza on the floor, or curled up on the corner of my couch, wrapped in a blanket. I’lll explain it in the language of memories, fantasies, hopes, metaphors, and desires.

*Late meaning like, maybe 11:30pm

In my everyday life, Wild Cozy Free feels like…

• Dancing in the kitchen as I cook a new recipe

• Hearing a new song for the first time, and intuitively knowing it’s going to be a new favorite/instant classic within the first 10 seconds (ex: ‘Sunshine’ by NEEDTOBREATHE or ‘The River’ by Daisy Jones and The Six or ‘Jackie Onassis’ by Sammy Rae and The Friends.)

• Riding my bike around Central Park on an endless summer afternoon blasting one of the songs above

• Weaving in and out of art galleries downtown

• Losing my voice singing all the lyrics at a Sammy Rae and The Friends concert and being home to watch Gilmore Girls by 10

• Laughing until I cry over tacos with my best friends

In my fantasies, Wild Cozy Free feels like…

• Being a cheetah stalking the Savannah and taking delicious naps under a tree near the watering hole

• Looking out at the ocean from a lighthouse at sunset

• Dancing it out with Meredith, Amelia, Maggie, AND Christina AND Lexie in Grey’s Anatomy (It’s a fantasy because I want all my favorite characters on Grey’s at the same time - alive, successful, and happy. Never going to happen, I know.)

• Changing the world from my couch

It feels like the chorus of “Across The Room” by ODESZA and Leon Bridges. Or “Free” by Rudimental (feat. Emeli Sande)

Or Katerina Sosna’s image below, of a cheetah covered in wildflowers.

Powerful yet full of ease. Brazen. Unexpectedly soft. Unapologetic. Quietly confident. Completely herself.

Thank you so much for reading. ‘Scited* for this wild, cozy, free journey ahead. (*Scared and excited - a Glennon Doyle-ism. This is certainly not the last time I’ll use it, or feel it.)

See you next week,

P.S. Follow me over at wildcozyfree on instagram! It’s going to be a hub for quotes, songs, tv shows/movies, and images etc. that I reference here. Think of it as an aesthetic mood board for all things wild cozy free.

P.P.S. Feel free to reach out and say hi if anything resonated with you, or if you have any questions at all.