wednesday's child is full of woe

Will the real Wednesday Addams please stand up?

The nickname "Wednesday" has clung to me for as long as I can remember.

Each time it's uttered, my eyes narrow, thinning as I exhale a drawn-out breath — a disproportionate amount of air expelling in a theatrical display of annoyance.

But it’s all an act.

Internally, pride swells and a secret smile tugs at the corners of my lips, daring to betray my front.

But that’s just between you and me. (🤫)

For a long time, the comparison to Wednesday Addams felt like a thinly veiled insult, a jab at my perceived darkness and social detachment. My insecurities flared at being likened to the “gloomy” character, whose very essence seemed to mock the norms I strived to uphold.

In my mind, the nickname was a not-so-subtle way of branding me the odd one, the weirdo. I saw Wednesday as a caricature of girlhood angst and moodiness, and I feared that others saw those same qualities mirrored in my being — qualities I had long sought to suppress.

Yet, as the years have passed, my defensive layers have peeled away. And I've started to accept this comparison because maybe it aims to celebrate the very qualities that make me me.

And, perhaps, what once seemed like darkness is actually a fortitude that allows me to march to my own cadence, unbowed by convention.

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At the core of Wednesday lies a reverence for the unconventional, and that scares people. Just her name conjures images of midnights and shadowed realms where the bizarre reign supreme – a fitting moniker for one who embraces the depths often shunned by the masses.

With her raven tresses and soulful eyes, Wednesday cuts a bewitching figure, her pale visage a canvas upon which profound thoughts and morbid witticisms flicker. Her words, sharp, piercing through superficial veneers to lay bare the essential truths others dare not speak.

Beneath her detached display burns a mind that views the world through a singularly unique lens. Wednesday's acuity and insightfulness are her talismans, illuminating profundities.

But it is through her devotion to kith and kin, that she reveals a tenderness seldom glimpsed. With preternatural protectiveness, she stands sentinel over those she holds dear.

And what I admire most about this — about the totality of Wednesday — is that her sense of kindness and loyalty exists outside the confines of politeness. Her devotion stems not from any obligatory deference to protocol, but from a well of genuine care. When she shows up for those she loves, it is a protective fierceness untainted by pretense or duplicity.

She does not adhere to rulebooks dictating appropriate timing, wording, or context. She flows uninhibited past arbitrary codes decreeing the "proper" ways to express warmth or concern. And with each mordant remark or sinister stare, an unmistakable benevolence bubbles to the surface.

And because she cares not for hierarchies of status — treating all souls equally, whether they’re covered, wholly, in hair or are just a hand — her loyalty feels more fundamental, like it’s woven from something hardier and more enduring.

For those of us raised in formalized environments, conditioned to conflate hollow courtesies with authentic care, Wednesday's unbridled kindness acts as a powerful rebuke. Through her example, we learn that true concern need not be packaged, contained, or contorted by culturally dictated definitions of what politeness should resemble.

And in this way, the delightfully uncouth Wednesday serves as the role model many of us desperately need. Certainly, the one I need. She gives voice to truths that too often go unspoken for fear of causing undue offense. She cuts through the artifice, unafraid of revealing the unsightly underbelly, even if it’s her own.

And she makes no apologies for her skewed perspective and her disregard for propriety acting as a rallying cry for the oddballs and misfits. She wants us to take heart in her example and allow our freak flags to fly. She gives us all permission to be exactly who we are intended to be. For that alone, she is worthy of veneration. Of icon status.

To be likened to this figure is to bask in self-affirmation. It is to defiantly discard the ill-fitting garbs of conformity, instead adorning oneself in the fashion of those who have mastered the subtle art of dancing betwixt the chasm of light and dark. So, maybe I should just let the conventional recoil at my peculiarities. And with an obstinately raised chin, walk along the blurred frontiers separating dream from waking, night from day, orthodox from profane. For it is in these intersections where I feel most alive, most seen, most me.

To my fellow Wednesdays, let’s take back the night.

And stand tall with strong, eerie gazes.

A little gothic and a lot alluring.

But not woeful, just perfectly twisted.

Emily Mulhall via Instagram

PS — I’ll see you in two weeks. My parents are coming to town and we’ve got big plans!!

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