i am so free from you


I'm up late, reading blog entries from people like Upsi and Kiki and Mulderfan, and this is what my soul sings:

"I am so free from you
I am so free from you
I am so free from you."

It's hardly poetry, but it's what resonates through me.

I remember being a preteen and teenager, and wanting more than anything to be free. Not free in the sense of being able to come and go as I please, or to live outside my parents home, as I imagine many teenagers feel, but free in the sense of free to be myself. Free from tyrrany. Free from censorship. Free from being told what a bad person I am.

I don't have to be near you.
I don't have to be at your beck and call.
I don't have to attend you on the days you deem important for no reason other than my biological relationship to you.
I don't have to pretend that we're "one big happy family".

Family estrangement is considered such a sad thing in our society, but nobody considers how absolutely wonderful it can be from the point of view of the person escaping an oppressive, soul-sucking relationship.  It's the kind of wonderful that makes you want to spin in a full skirt in the middle of a breezy meadow.

Divorcing my mother is the best thing I have ever done, bar none.

As for my father? I'm sorry he chose to tether himself to such a woman. He had potential, perhaps. It was wasted on her. He made his choice, and I made mine.

My choice is to be ME, and free.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Claire!
    This is such a beautifully stated sentiment of the reality of parting from our abusive genetically linked 'families.'
    It's so sad that these people have drawn the ultimatum that they have and forced us to choose between authenticity/being our (kind, loving, warm, compassionate)selves and having a relationship with them.

    Truly, it is their loss.

    Love,
    Vanci

    ReplyDelete