Confession: I'm finally ready to be free
An aha moment after 13 years of marriage
July 4, 2010, our wedding day.
I celebrated my 13th wedding anniversary on the 4th of July. When we got married back in 2010, I remember making this joke: we’re giving up our freedom on Independence Day! And in some ways we did. For thirteen years we have chosen each other exclusively. We have bound ourselves to each other and built a single life. Regardless of what the future holds, our roots are enmeshed for eternity. In choosing to be married, I choose to not be free. At least that’s what I thought. Until this past week.
This week something shifted for me in terms of my perspective on freedom. I used to think my freedom was defined by someone else’s control over me. Now I realize my freedom depends on my need to control others and the future. Based on this new definition, I didn’t relinquish my freedom at all when I got married — but my husband did. What a thing to realize. What a thing to say out loud.
I’ve already detailed here how I’m wired to be in a perpetual state of fight or flight, and controlling people and my environments is how I cope. Control is what makes me feel safe. The cost of this safety? Confinement. Of both myself, and others. Every career change, ever potential vacation, every decision made whether mundane or essential has instinctually been regulated by my singular question: if I let this happen, will I still be safe?
Thirteen years. Thirteen years of asking an adventurer to let safety decide what comes next. When I tell you my husband is a saint, believe me. He is. Despite his Alaskan urge to fly the coop and literally scale a mountain for fun, he continues to nest with me. By all accounts we have been and remain incredibly safe. The pantry is always stocked, the bills are always paid. But have we been free?
Can we be free if we know exactly what comes next at every given moment?
Throughout her life, French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908 - 1986) explores exactly these questions and offers a beautiful explanation of what freedom in its highest form is — possibility:
[Simone de Beauvoir] develops the concept of freedom as transcendence (the movement toward an open future and indeterminate possibilities) to argue that we cannot be determined by the present. The essence of freedom as transcendence aligns freedom with uncertainty and risk. To be free is to be radically contingent.
Radically contingent. I wasn’t quite sure what this means, even though I liked the sound of it. So I looked it up for us:
This state occurs when a human being experiences the mystery of death as the final reality of every life. Today's world is alive with images that communicate this reality. Just a few include: the nuclear threat; the daily news of famine, airline hijacking, civil wars, terrorist bombings; and advanced medical techniques that sometimes work and sometimes don't.
Whatever occasions this state, everyone has those moments in which his own death becomes a reality to him. A dimension of this experience is a sense of awe, that is fear and fascination, accompanied by a unique emotional tone. One experiences the shock and fear of realizing that death is the absolute, irreversible finality; the fear of not knowing how, when or where it will occur, just that it will. This is accompanied by a kind of amazement that one is, in that moment, still alive - that it is not me this time.
This is the fascination which compels one to watch death occur at the same moment as one is tingling with one's own liveliness. During such a moment, one decides on present awareness of one's death; and more than that, to carry on living in and through such a moment. The residue of these events is a sense of not wanting to forget the reality of death that has been experienced, at the same time as a deeper appreciation for life, alive in a new way to the possibilities and options open to one.
The Encyclopedia of World Problems & Human Potential (what a website title)
So to be free, we must be willing to be truly alive — which according to de Beauvoir, is directly linked to our willingness to face our own mortality. But whereas my brain would usually jump to risk management, today I’m holding space for a new ideal: that if if the future is fundamentally uncertain, that means it is also full of infinite possibilities. In other words, the future is free. If we allow it to be.
What does this mean for my future… what does this mean for my marriage? I told my husband that for an anniversary gift I want a 13 pendant because I want to claim this year as my lucky year. I think that luck for me this year will be born of my willingness to be free and let my partner be free. To replace the question, “Will I be safe?” with “Will I be free?” To walk through the doors my husband wants to open instead of locking them out of fear. To trust the magic of new beginnings. To grow branches together, instead of just roots. To let my marriage be the ultimate freedom, because within it my partner unlocks a future filled with infinite potential and a present where I am wholly and utterly in awe of being alive.
Interestingly enough, even though I didn’t research and surface this definition of freedom until this week, it’s something I’ve subconsciously been exploring in my poetry. In The Shift, I share pairs of poems that embody “before” and “after” shift moments I experienced during the pandemic.
Here are several pair of poems that speak to this shift towards free thinking and living. I hope you enjoy them, and I hope they make you feel just a little more free.
Keep reading The Shift here.
Here are some action items you can take to feel more free:
Listen to the Self Love Confidential Freedom Playlist
Freedom is only possible when we hold ourselves accountable. Ask yourself these accountability questions to understand where you may unknowingly be compromising your freedom:
Do I know what I need in order to be fulfilled on a daily basis? Am I meeting those needs?
Am I compromising my long-term joy for short-term safety?
How do I actively nurture my relationships (including with myself) instead of being on auto-pilot or in fight or flight?
What am I sacrificing right now, and why?
What am I working towards right now, and why?
Am I being brave, or am I letting fear lead?
Is it easy to be in an intimate relationship with me, or are there barriers?
Am I being true to myself in my daily choices, or am I conforming to an external ideal?
How am I replenishing my energy right now?
What gives me delight?
How am I communicating my needs with the people in my life?
What does the future hold for me?
Did this newsletter resonate with you? Reply directly to this email to let me know if it shifted your perspective on freedom.