Free to Dream

Freedom is often portrayed in its bigger-than-life moments… the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall...

Or eternalized in print, snapped in a Nobel Prize winning photograph, as six marines raise the flag atop Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima...

Freedom , preserved in the words of  Martin Luther King...

Or popularized in a song, such as Martina Mc Bride’s ...

“Let Freedom ring,

Let the white dove sing,

Let the whole world know that today is the day of a reckoning...

Let the weak be strong,

Let the right be wrong.

Roll the stone away

Let the guilty pay.

It's Independence Day”.

If  Freedom tends to be idealized in such trumpet- blowing, red-white-and-blue moments,  personal experience has taught me that the more common sound of  Freedom is barely audible, more  whisper  than  march.  As the song proclaims, “Let Freedom ring!” 

Oh yes, but also let it stir, let it murmur, and let it sigh…

No big Freedoms can exist without the little ones, and those little Freedoms do not start with a boon. In the individual, Freedom starts as a feeling of unrest, an indignant challenge, the slight, high-pitched sound of a piccolo, not a trombone.

We  live in the most  privileged democratic society  in the world, yet  many  choose enslavement over freedom.  Many of those slaves are disproportionately women. We may have “come a long way, baby”, but whether it is in the home place or the workplace,  women often accept and anticipate to be valued less than their male counterparts. The real culprit to  Equal Rights is not a lack of policy or feminist’s representation,  but a women’s tendency to undervalue herself. She gives away the keys to the cell, to the first person who asks for them, and locks herself in. 

All girls know about the correlation between our looks and our degree of popularity. We know that if you’re not pretty, you’d better be skinny or rich or funny, as hell!  We know  about  the correlation between our attractiveness and our career opportunities, and how important it is  that we maintain our appearance and some semblance of sex appeal. I have, at times, worn heels too high and necklines too low; maybe, it’s because I like the way I look and feel when I dress that way…. Maybe not.  At forty eight, I fight the aging battle at least twice- daily, with creams and serums and MORE than a little fear for the day I wake to find my mother staring back at me in the mirror.  When my youth is gone, and believe me, it is fleeing rapidly on strapless Candies, WHAT will I have to negotiate?

I try to be feminine, or at least society’s concept of what that is, because I was taught, that is “what women do”. I took Home Economics in high school, and learned to sew, write a proper thank you note and make a great Brunswick Stew.  I try to channel Martha Stewart, but honestly, the cloak of femininity has not always fit me properly. I am a tomboy at heart, preferring to engage in sports and competitive play over dressing or fixing up. As a pre-teen, my family joked that my gait more resembled a linebacker than a lady.  I have always gotten a great deal of satisfaction from hard work. Sometimes, I think I make a better employee than wife and mother. I often feel bound to my family, through the obligations of schedules and carpools and comfort and dinner at six, but my heart has not always resided with me at home.  I work myself haggard, trying to be everything to everybody, which I realize is IMPOSSIBLE!

Freedom wasn’t won in 1776. For me, it’s a daily battle that is constantly renegotiated. No one can have Freedom, without first claiming it, and I began to claim mine in my early forties, when I began hearing a faint whisper of unrest. I woke up to find myself in an emotional wasteland; I felt so utterly boring and sad. Over the years, I had exhausted myself, supporting my family’s needs, until I felt I no longer resembled ME. I didn’t know WHO I was, anymore, or WHAT I wanted to do with my life.

Eventually,  I began to make myself important to me, again. I began to develop some interests. I started a Book Club, and began taking yoga. I rallied my women friend’s, many of whom felt in the same boat of banal- middle-aged- predictability, and we began having the occasional girl’s night out. I joined Toastmasters.  Finally, I began to write, because it was something I recalled having enjoyed when I was a child. Now, I call myself a “writer”, which is surreal Perhaps, I’ll write a novel some day, or maybe I’ll go back to college for something that intrigues me, not just to earn another degree.  Every day feels like a brand new day. My life feels full of opportunity: exciting and rich and free.

Free…