On: Freedom
I have always been preoccupied with freedom. Even when I was a child, I hated the constraints of a school. I used to play pretend in my bedroom that I was in middle school, where I would have a locker to call my own. When I was in high school, I felt that I would feel more free if I could just get to university where I could choose my own schedule and make my own way, so I graduated early. After the newness of university wore off, I felt that if I could just graduate and go traveling, I would be free. If I could just see the world, experience new things, not have a plan for a while, that would be the peak of freedom.
The irony is that when I first moved to France, I found myself virtually stranded on a farm in Normandy, with very little actual freedom to move about my life. And, inevitably, I was still me. So, I was still trapped in the same cage of my habits (namely, romantic habits) that I grew up in.
Thatās not to say that each new experience didnāt bring me a new kind of freedom, because it did. France shifted my definition of freedom. England shifted my definition of freedom. I began writing this before virtually the whole world went in to quarantine because of COVID-19, but now that is hugely shifting my (and everyone else around the globeās) definition of freedom too.
Entering into a serious relationship for the first time in my life at the age of 22 brought me some freedoms as well. It gave me the freedom to actually learn to love myself. It gave me a safe place to explore who I was. It gave me space to accept myself. But, in the end, I didnāt feel I had the freedom to be an individual. And, at 24 years old, living 8000 miles from my home, the pull to that particular freedom was too strong to ignore.
As I turned 25, the most important thing to me was being free. So, Iāve spent the last year of my life actively avoiding romantic partnerships. My definition of freedom didnāt include caring enough about someone to hurt when they werenāt there. Connecting is in my nature, but I found it easier to seek connections that couldnāt last and wouldnāt hurt when they faded. Even my ties to a city, to friends, to an apartment, to a home had to be kept shallow.
I turned 26 four days ago, and Iāve begun to slip. Iāve begun to have feelings for this place. For these people. Iāve dated many a boy casually this past year. But, recently I was lying next to one, and we were discussing the formality (or lack thereof) of our relationship. At the time, I was sure I didnāt want anything serious. He said to me, āBecause you want your freedom.ā And, yeah, I was terrified of losing myself.
The shift was quick. But, suddenly, Iām realizing that fighting my feelings is a cage Iāve put myself in. Being dishonest with myself about those feelings is a prison of my own making. I guess what Iām saying is, itās okay for your definition of freedom to change along the way. Itās okay if your path to freedom isnāt linear. Itās okay if it doesnāt look the same as the person next youās path.
Letās go back to when I moved to Europe after I graduated university: In France, I found a kind of love even in the harsh Norman winter with a boy in a jumper with a buckās head on it. It would cause me the biggest heartbreak Iāve ever known three months later. Two days before my 21st birthday, I went to a pub and drank Guinness and kissed a boy I barely knew (for the first time in 7 years), and I never saw him again. Later that year, I would fall for a teacher with floppy blonde hair who would leave me waiting on the train platform for him in Liverpoolās rain.
While that time certainly had things that threatened to cage me in, it was one of the last years that my heart was truly open to being broken. And, having the courage to jump in to things that might hurt, that might envelop me, that might make me feel alive did indeed offer me the freedom I was after.
For a long while, Iāve been operating with a definition of freedom that included not feeling negative emotions and not giving anyone the power to alter my life. Iād been telling myself that admitting to myself, or anyone else, that someone else could hurt me was a weakness. And, that way of life worked for me, for a while.Ā
But, now, Iām learning that there is perhaps freedom in the letting in. There is freedom in asking people to care for you when you need them to. There is freedom in being sad that you had to let go of something worth having. I am learning that showing up to your feelings ā good, bad, ugly ā might not be a weakness, as I once thought. It might even be a strength.
For this we can be grateful:
You used to want to crack your ribs so your torso would lie flat //
That hole in the pit of your stomach used to threaten to swallow you entirely //
But now it feels like a fire rising in your throat //
Threatening to spew out of you //
Now you expand your ribs as you remind yourself to breathe deep //
Surely something good must come of all this //
Surely it is better to go down in flames than sink to the bottom of the ocean.
x Ash














