My greatest moments of freedom came as a child on a warm
summer night playing with my brother and sister, Two Eyes! Two Eyes! We invented the game with such fluid rules, I
still can’t remember them. It was total abandon, our freedom, until our mother
called us into the house for our baths. Then our freedom ended.
I was free as a teenager riding up and down Fourth
Street with my friends, radio blasting and lobbying cat calls to the guys in the
cars next to us. That abandon ended at midnight, sharp, or my father would
ground me for a week. Freedom ended.
Though I had freedom during these times, I had no
independence. As a child I couldn’t go
to the store on my own. I couldn’t
purchase anything, and I couldn’t drive to my grandmother’s house for a visit.
As a teen my independence grew. I had a part-time job at Kroger’s which
allowed purchasing power, but my father refused my learner’s permit. I couldn’t
drive to my job, and permission was still required to go out with my friends.
But nothing illustrated the difference between freedom
and independence until many years later. A single mother, I lived in a low-rent
apartment complex with my infant son. When we first moved there most of the
occupants were young families with their first child, but the landlord began
accepting Section 8 applicants and things began to change. I would come home from work with a brief case
over one shoulder, a diaper bag over the other and my son on my hip. I realized all thirty-two apartments were now
occupied by single mothers. Yet, I was different; I worked for my living.
I was friendly with the other mothers, but I envied
their freedom. When I came home their children were splashing in kiddy pools.
The mothers sat on lawn chairs kibitzing while their dinner smoked on hibachis.
Night after night, I watched their freedom from my second floor window while
cooking dinner, washing dishes, bathing my son and getting ready for the next
day of work and day care. I began to think that I was the fool. I could quit work and be a stay at home mom.
I could be free, but I soon realized – I would not be independent. To accept their lifestyle, I would need to
give up my car, my retirement account, my benefits package and my choices on
where I live. I choose independence and
vowed that I would get out of that apartment complex some day. I planned how to get out, and I did.
Our founding fathers did not send a Declaration of
Freedom to King George. They weren’t asking George for a gift of freedom that
may one day be taken away. They wanted Independence. They desired the independence to stand or
fall, succeed or fail, to make their own decisions, to make their own way. They
knew what we forgot. Freedom can be given to you, but the payment for that gift
may be a slice of your independence. Independence must be earned, step by step.
If you want independence stand up; earn it!
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