What does Freedom mean to you? What odes it mean t be free? Are you free?
I think it's a lot more about what's going on inside you as opposed to if you are actually free to come and go as you please. In the years that it was just Bailey and me I felt free. But I only felt that way after I had worked through all the hurt and pain that the wasband caused me. And that was hard work. Years of therapy to work my way through it all. As I was coming out on the other end I began to feel this sense of freedom. It was like I had had a noose around my neck before and as that noose was released I felt free.
I used describing the image of me driving down a huge long road in a convertible with my hair flying wild and crazy in the wind.
But then Bailey died. The kids all left and I was alone. Alone without another beating heart for the first time in my life. And it was January. It was hard. I cried a lot. Threw myself into work and was generally speaking alone alone 24/7, because we were also still in a pandemic.
My sleep pattern changed and I was waking up earlier than I have ever woken up in my entire life. Bailey and I were sleepers - sometimes not even stirring until 8. Yes, 8. And with her no longer to snuggle with I was up at 6. What does one do at 6am? besides scroll around on your phone - read the NYT, the Skimm, Morning Brew and check out FB and IG.
I'm not sure how it started - but I think it's because I saw someone posting a photo from the top of Mt. Philo every morning. There I was lying in bed and this person was at the top of Mt. Philo posting a photo. Given that I had been exercising every day since April 17, 2020 this might be a great idea to get my ass out there on these cold winter mornings and get some exercise before I sat in front of my computer for 10-12 hours.
So that's when it started and before I knew it, it became a routine. A routine. Something I have NEVER had in my entire life. I thought I was anti routine, but it turns out routine is good, really really good for me.
As I went everyday and spent a lot of time with myself I realized that I got to know myself even better and found that I actually like me and like spending time with me, myself and I.
On another note, I've been getting the Brainpickings newsletter for over a decade now and love what Maria writes - she's very thought provoking. I went down that rabbit hole this morning and found these 2 quotes.
"....the willingness to embrace uncertainty, live with mystery, and make peace with ambiguity; “In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar,”
“Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs,” Joan Didion famously wrote in 1968, and it was perhaps Beauvoir reverberating through her words.
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