Freedom

Chad and I have different definitions of freedom.

His is very patriotic: the right to live your life as you choose – as long as it doesn’t interfere with life, limb, or property of others.

And mine is more of a feeling, summed up as: the right to gallop through an open field…as long as you don’t spook the cows.

Hmmm. Maybe our definitions aren’t that different after all.

At my last job, I worked swing-shift. Usually around 8pm when I was alone and it wasn’t busy, I’d get up, leave my cubicle, and walk in circles around the room.

Round and round I’d go.

I couldn’t leave, because I had to answer the phone. This sometimes resulted in me having to bolt if I was on the other side of the room when it rang, and skid to a stop while simultaneously lifting the receiver.

I’d try to speak without too much heavy breathing, which was definitely not in the job description, nor at all appropriate for the environment I was in.

I’d spend 15 minutes or so just pacing the room. Once I got going, it was hard to stop. I always gave a shout out (inside my head of course) to those zoo animals with that restless compulsion to move. Usually predators that trace the same path back and forth – as if in a trance – inside their enclosure.

Months later, from where I am now, it feels like I’ve set myself free.

It’s as though Chad and I found a weak spot in the fence, and decided to go for it.

It feels like my spirit has started to thaw; regaining feeling after being numb for so long.

We’ve freed ourself of a mortgage, water and electricity bills, HOA dues, and a security system. We downsized from two vehicles to one.

We freed ourself from what’s expected of us, choosing to live in a way that eschews much of what humans have created in the name of comfort and safety.

We’ve sacrificed the convenience of running water, dishwashers, big bathrooms with unlimited hot water, and a home with multiple rooms and places to store things.

We ditched someone else’s structure, which means now we have to impose our own. After all, we have these bodies to feed and keep alive, and mine comes with a pretty hardcore coffee addiction.

The tricky part is, well, us.

We all have a choice. If we don’t like something, we are free to change it.

We were the ones who chose to work those long hours, chose to stay at jobs that didn’t leave room for much else, chose to spend our money in a way that made us need to keep showing up to these jobs that drained us. We could have easily kept that cycle going, but managed to break free of it instead.

Which means we need to find a new one.

As I start to establish myself as a freelance writer there are deadlines to meet. I have to learn how to not be too hard on myself while holding myself accountable at the same time. I have to not drag that stress, the frenzy of go-go-go into this new life, but I can’t forget it completely. And that’s what I’ve been working on trying to figure out.

At least now, I’m free to gallop to my heart’s content, as long as I don’t have a deadline to meet. And best of all when the phone rings, I don’t have to answer it.