On Being Free

Essay 41

Some people think it takes confidence to become free, but that’s not true; it’s when stepping through the doors that one grows a spine. It gets lonely out there, you might opine, the old tribes left for one to found one’s own, but it’s in what is elective that one’s not alone.

That I can go or come back or embark anew is freedom. That I can share it and take it back is freedom. The belly that’s electric with touch or sunshine is freedom, the snowed in who start slicing up the cake for all is freedom. Each “I don’t love you anymore” is freedom. Every “They can’t do this to us” is freedom. The students down in the street, the lovers who break boundaries, yes, the “Don’t try this at home” is freedom; the book in your palm that slides open. The sweat of the dance that sticks onto your clothes as you squeeze through for fresh air to check on your work on your phone when you want to is freedom. Stepping up on a stage where one waits for applause is freedom, to wait where it’s dark and stay unseen, to choose when to scream or when to whisper is freedom. It’s on that other side that communion somehow becomes real, and easy and light and much wished for, like a Sunday morning spent in complete silence as wished for, which in itself tastes a lot like freedom.