Only as I began writing this did I think of the television show, South Park, and the episode(s) in which Cartman emphatically exclaims, "I do what I want!". (No I don't watch the show that much, but my brother was an avid fan. That's not to say it wasn't funny.)
Again, my post is late for the word of the week show A.K.A. Drop in the Ocean (DITO). Nobody has punched me in the face yet through my computer monitor regarding my tardiness so I am submitting a day late for the second consecutive week. If this happens again, my flow of thought being late, I think I'll just not submit next time unless the feedback for this is glowingly and oppositely positive.
I could say something stupid like, "Oh, I did this on purpose - it's my freedom" and make it seem like it was some creative addition to the effectiveness of my post. It wasn't and I respect you enough to tell you that.
Anyway, the premise of freedom causes me to reflect on the past. Most people who "know" me don't know that I went to "day-care" for the first 12 years of my life. This meant that before and after school I would go to day-care. On holidays and during the summer, as well, I'd also be there.
I know I have touched on this before in prior posts, but I do believe it helped shape me. In some ways, I felt like I lost my freedom. I didn't get to walk home like all my friends did or sit at home and watch endless reruns of Unsolved Mysteries and eat a tub of mint chip ice cream during summertime. Of course, you bet I did exactly that once I hit age 12 and had my first summer to myself.
I think I was just upset. I never really understood how something as simple as getting along could disrupt my family to the point of getting divorced and having to go to daycare for so long. Much of that was the unruly temperament of my brother. I was a smart, mature kid and being sent to a day-care full of less mature kids was probably an under-utilization of my gifts at that age. In that respect, it felt like a prison. I wonder if my life would have been different had my family been able to keep it together and I would have had a normal life. I could have a healthy life somewhere living in a city in a productive career as an accountant or business analyst or something. But I think I lost that freedom.
I'm not complaining, just expressing how I feel/felt. Like I said, it helped shape who I am, I believe. While most kids in day-care were running around, recklessly growing up, I think my response was to sit back and watch everything and be introspective. Though I "lost" my freedom in a way by being forced to attend day-care, there was enough flexibility in the structure of it that I could still find myself. It may sound stupid to you based on how young I was, but our youth is obviously a major part of our lives.
Otherwise, I think I've always valued freedom above most things. Before my parents divorced, we had an older couple as neighbors - the husband was a salesman or something for Wrigley, likely the world's leading chewing gum company at the time. I'd always exit through the sliding glass door and go over to their house, leaving my parents to wonder where the hell I had went. The old man would always give me gum given that he had such an abundance of it. I think he probably also had new flavors before they were ultimately released, but I really cannot remember.
In short, I think that's an innate quality of mine, needing space and freedom. I'll still get done what I need to get done, but I need a bit of alone time per se.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, but my brother was a real asshole growing up. There's no telling what he did to me when I was a baby. I've heard rumblings from family members that he did stuff to me in my crib way back then. Who knows. But he had always picked on me and would go as far as sneaking into the bathroom and pushing the shower curtains while I was showering to scare me so I assume it wasn't anything good.
I think, in this way, day-care was good for me as it separated me from my brother after the divorce as he had outgrown day-care himself and wouldn't be attending by the time I was 5 or so. It was freedom from a tyrant.
Sometimes I get mad at myself because I had always told myself growing up that if I could just make it to age 18, past all this bullshit, my life would be smooth sailing. I could move away and never speak to my family again, and unfortunately I hit a road block, mostly from their own fuck-ups and actually needed their help and got sucked into the mess of family-ism. Now, my life is about trying to get ahead of those mistakes, still, and maybe by age 30 I can then leave these people behind. I wonder if you can tell how deeply rooted hate is within me. I used to use this hatred to succeed in baseball.
But, yeah, freedom.
I do need structure in my life, but I need the freedom to eat breakfast for dinner. Or to walk away from a table full of family or friends at a restaurant and recharge in the bathroom for five or ten minutes as I leave everyone else to go on with their chats. Freedom to quit a job and drive to the Grand Canyon with no spare clothes and to hike it in a pair of jeans and old shoes. I did that once.
I guess I have a hard time with people. My piece of shit brother molested me as a boy and it may always affect me. I apologize for being such a downer, but it's what feels normal for me.
I like the freedom to come and go. I like the freedom of Steemit in which I can ramble on about all this nonsense and maybe one person out there will actually like to read this even if most of you have already puked endlessly on your computer/phone screens and have already began retrieving a cloth to wipe it up or a box of rice to soak up the liquid chunks.
I'm sure I have a lot more freedom than some people of the past and even, currently, residents of various countries or areas so I should probably be grateful, and I am, but we're all where we are and I believe it was katrina-ariel who said, "here is good". I do like that short, but sweet sentence. It is simple and effective and, I feel, probably something I could recite to myself during a tough day at work or similar.
Outside of that, I think some people misuse their freedom. I wish I could be more blind to how others live their lives, but it is difficult at times. I met a girl I thought I actually kind of liked only to find out she was a shameless whore. Young, too, and I'd venture to say the reason I thought she was older was because of her false sense of confidence wrapped up in her sexual activity and promiscuity. I felt disgusted that I was so wrong about someone. The fact that someone has the freedom to be so sexually unabashed hurts me.
Then, to a far lesser degree, there are freedoms such as being able to get tattoos or piercings or even something like a boob-job. I guess I kind of feel like we should appreciate the body we were given and tend to believe we become what we want to, good or bad. Tattoos can be so self-entitled. I'll never understand people who think tattoos are attractive or would make someone infinitely more attractive. I feel they scream, "look at me" too much. Leave it to a guy telling you he was sexually abused as a boy on a blogging platform to tell you that, huh?
But really, the whole "guys with beards and tattoos are sexy" thing is cheesy if you ask me. You look stupid. And any girl with a nose ring or piercing is usually immediately a turn off. Maybe I should respect the freedom we have to like whatever it is we want to like, don't know and don't really care.
Freedom is good. I moved my PC to my bedroom just the other day and I like having the freedom to do so. Freedom, I think, is what life has been about since the beginning of time. But freedom can be destructive. Abortion, sex and dating, driving in motorcycles, the list never ends. The idea of freedom and the undoubted domino effect of each person's choices is essentially just the idea of being able to live on Earth with other people.
Photo Sources: South Park, Fat Kid, Wrigley Gum, Breaking Free, The Past, Tattoo Douche