Freedom is having given what you gave,

 Time

    Money,

       Love,

          Respect,

And not later expecting anything except, at least, a “good person” on the other end of it all as the final product.

 

What kind of freedom pigeonholes a “good person”, kids who avoid prison and choose school and college, teens who decide not to give in to shoplifting, booze, or pot, early and unprotected sex, young adults who fall in love, but are careful to still stay focused on working toward their individualism and for whatever they get, and finally full-fledged adults who love good and bad people, who respect and love those who never, actively, or actually, loved them, but who they feel the need to love back, somehow, anyway, young parents who learned how to discipline their kids with your help and, sometimes, your unwanted, but needed interference, course mates who struggle with your outlier ideologies, and often agree and disagree with you from one end of social, political, and religious spectrums to the next, or a husband who tries, but with good intention, to stepford wife you as though it were as natural as casually breathing.

 

Is freedom a wading away from those to whom you gave help and support – the ones who pay forward, but never back, those who seek out other people to love and respect

              and who return nothing to you, because, of the proverbial I did not ask you to do all that you have done demeanor and expressive and amazingly satisfied side grins?”

 

Does freedom include that special one who says I love you Mama. I love who you are, and I love who you helped me to become. Is it that freedom that we talk so much about, the one that happens when all of it meets in a complete circle, when the world becomes your pearl again, and you still smile at anyone who decided not to give back – Is it that freedom that you feel when you wish them well with every thought that you have of them. Is freedom, itself, your gift shrouded in your recognition that the reciprocated love that you do receive is also draped in unconditional love for you in all of your good intentions, mistakes, and imperfections too?

 

With no one exact definition – Freedom feels good internally and externally  

 

And, though the multitude of new emotions that freedom elicits, can be, almost, frightening, you just recognize it when it happens anyway!

 

And finally, is freedom the, ultimate, understanding that the real passage of sovereignty only escorts you if you’re brave enough to start over every morning when you awake, if you accept that the sight of the sun that you see is your gift of opportunity for being new, and the thoughts that you hear in your own mind are wonderings of energy,  power, and joy that you will encounter between that second and the first streak of the night moon’s light across your smiling face into eyes that should know without a doubt that the rewarded freedom of living as one person per body,  that you are, hopefully, lucky enough to experience was, completely, and unmistakably, warranted.

 

That is the answer.

 

By Salome G. Rowe - 09/13/09