Prisoner in a free world

I have never known what freedom is, I have tasted sour grapes, love, betrayals, wounds, tears, hatred, passion, lust, abuse, trauma, anguish. I have known it all, except freedom. I’ve grown up studying about India’s struggle for freedom, which sometimes got me in tears, of pride, of patriotism, of selflessness and sometimes, it just didn’t make any sense at all. I’ve never known what freedom is, probably because I’ve taken birth in a free nation. As I grew up, I realised, you can be a free man in a prison or a prisoner in a free world. It is a matter of perception. I have grown up with bitter memories of the past that are etched to my mind, body and soul. I have had people all these years telling me the obvious, to move on, I have. It does not bother me anymore, I do not cry about it anymore, but it’s there, embedded. I cannot free myself from the shadows of the past, I cannot free my soul. Freedom is about letting go, of futile feelings, of unwanted relationships, of wasted emotions, of people who do not deserve to be around you. Freedom is about realising self-worth even in the most difficult circumstances, it is about gathering yourself bit by bit to fight the odds, of whatever magnitude. It is about belief, about hope. Freedom is all that and more. It is about gathering the courage to break the norms and do what the heart says without fearing the consequences, about taking risks and knowing it was all worth it, it is about gathering strength to go upstream, to go against the winds and finding your true self in the journey. I’m caged by the society but I cannot blame anybody because I have to open the doors, to fly in the blue skies and see the world that I’ve always dreamt of. I’m bottled up in so much anger for a reason I fail to comprehend.Growing up in a society that is as hypocritical as ours, has taken a toll on me. I do not want anybody to tell me what to do because the norms suggest that. Our morality rests on the fear of god, on religion. We help people, expecting a reward from the god for good karma and don’t hurt others because of the fear of punishment. The norms, the definitions, customs, traditions, tolerance, intolerance, ego, do not make sense to me. Suffocates me, so much so that I’m on the verge of dismissing the world and it’s ways. I want to unchain myself, to penetrate deeper and cleanse my soul. I want to untangle myself from these invisible demons that suck the life out of me. I am at a point where I do not care what people have to say and do not give a fuck about being judged. My words, more often than not, are misinterpreted, I never clarify, I don’t care to, I have invested so much time and energy into futile arguments and discussions about things I couldn’t care less about, that I’ve quit explaining things, I never will, even if that gives me a label of a disrespectful daughter, of a sister who is setting a bad example for a younger sibling, of a rebel, of an iconoclast. I have wasted two decades of my life understanding the ways of the world, thinking I’m an obtuse learner, only to realise these ways are stupid and irrational. I’m on my journey to attain freedom and release the caged bird. Conforming to the norms is conforming myself to torture, but no more. I’ve set forth on the path to find myself, and thereafter discover my dreams and chase them. You cannot find yourself unless you detach yourself with these emotions within and free yourself by opening the doors, no one else will release you. And yes, as Red says in Shawshank Redemption, freedom is like crawling through shit and coming out clean on the other side.