Freedom – personal freedom
Yesterday's post was a setting of the context of Freedom (as I see it in this moment). Today's post is a personal issue I have about Freedom.
Freedom has always been one of my most treasured values personally. One of my biggest issues with people/life, is when decisions are made that affect my life, in which I have had no input. I Really Loathe that. To me, it's like taking away my input regarding my own life – you living my life for me. And of course, it happens all the time. Life does it relentlessly. (Who decided everyone should work from 8am-5pm? No one talked to me about that!)
Looking at the overall spectrum of my life, I can see why I was married for 9 years and single for the next 32. I have equated freedom with being
single – oppression with being married. And yes, I know that in
reality, that is not necessarily so. However, it is the way the 'perfect marriage' was touted to be in the 1950s … and the way I saw my parent's marriage, and the way I experienced being married. (Remember I'm a baby boomer, and the context for marriage has shifted immensely, but not so much for my generation.) AND, when I look around, I surely
do see oppression happening today in relationships – not just women being
oppressed, but men also. By oppression, I mean that one or the other party is not living to their fullest potential, either by active or covert behavior on the part of the other. Sometimes, the oppression has been so ingrained, neither notices it.
I didn't notice it when we first married. I abdicated one decision after another, until both of us assumed I had no opinion. And usually, I was happy being with people – what we did, where we went was a non-issue for me. I liked his taste in home furnishings, etc. There wasn't much that I cared about that was worth an argument. But something was born in me when Rebecca was born. I was accountable in another way – an important way. Once I was reconnected to myself, I realized what I had done. By that time, the pattern had been set, and breaking the pattern broke the marriage. I wasn't willing to live as we had, he wasn't willing to change the unconscious vows we had made.
And every significant relationship since that time has had an issue with the amount of time I spend working – traveling. I think it's one of life's many perversions – having to choose between my life work and a life partner. Being on my own just seems easier to me.
My choice … as always.
