This is 53
Navigating the space where freedom and time coexist
Tomorrow is my birthday and I’ve been thinking a lot about time, which I suppose is fitting as we age. I have always been fond of my birthday, even as it falls during the winter and the only time I’ve had warm weather birthdays was when I lived in southern California for 10 years, and even then some years were more sunny than others. In my mind’s eye I see myself walking down the street to my favorite neighborhood taqueria, wearing what I called my dress flip-flops because they had a big rhinestone in the center of the thong, and a short cotton skirt in swirling shades of turquoise that I’d bought at a beach vendor. That feeling of freedom and bliss, being in my thirties and living in a beach town and hanging out with friends, dating and flirting with all sorts of men, was vital to my well-being. I had broken away from the life I had thought I was supposed to want, one with a husband and a house, a dog and two cats and a bird.
Freedom is a word that Pops and Mari use often with each other, usually in reference to one of them trying to dictate what the other should be doing or not doing. Occasionally Pops has said “she needs freedom” to Mari in reference to me, doing his best to remember that I am an adult now and not the five-year-old who pretended to play chess with him and yelled YAY CINDERELLA at Memorial Stadium during an Orioles game because she wanted to be cheering like the adults were. I have boundaries now, or I try to, anyway. That guiding voice in my head wants to ensure that I am not bogged down with emotional labor that often happens when I crave connection and think the only way I can get it is by contorting myself and softening my boundaries.
But time makes this sense of freedom tricky, or nebulous. How free am I, really, if my time is taken up with cleaning cat puke, which is a daily occurrence now that I have two senior cats with delicate constitutions; handling personal administrative tasks like hygiene and cooking, errands and paying bills; working for various clients; and being cognizant of my ever-growing need to rest more? If time is wearing down my physical body and morphing my hips and lower back into being much less forgiving of marathon writing sessions with butt in chair, and my tolerance for bullshit and shenanigans is depleting rapidly, have I sacrificed some of the freedom of my younger years?
My friend
got me started on selecting a word for each year, back when I used to write with her group. Last year, I crafted a phrase: FOCUS + PERSISTENCE = FREEDOM. In hindsight, this phrase strikes me as a bit lofty, but my intention was to remind myself that for as much as I want to skip to the end, to the inevitable montage scene in the last 45 minutes of most rom-coms, I need to be persistent and stay focused on my goals if I want to achieve them and, as a result, find the freedom I want.This year, however, as I consider that I have yet to complete my 2024 personal plan I began in December, I’m wondering how free I am if I feel constricted by time and schedules. Having structure can be freeing, yes, but it can also be oppressive. Where is the balance? What does it take for me to feel that sense of bliss and freedom I felt more than two decades ago, walking down a California street, smiling at how cute my ruby-polished toes looked in my sparkly flip-flops?
I suppose what it takes is being truthful with myself first, listening more closely to that voice in my head and asking for guidance and direction in the moments when I am anxious over this pressing sense of time being limited, that tomorrow is not guaranteed. Maybe bliss looks like taking a rest with the cats, or going for a walk to clear my head, or having a dance party. Maybe freedom means I forgive myself, again, for not living the life I sometimes tell myself would have been more stabilizing. Because I know after all these years on my own that the best gift I have ever given myself was freedom to simply be and the time to discover that nothing could take that away from me.
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