Freedom: A Tale of Life Experiences

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(When people migrate to another place for various reasons, they have experiences to share. This is one such personal journey of a girl who left her place behind in search of freedom and faced the other side of the world. How it went is self-evident in her narration.)

Have you ever paid the price for excessive freedom? I don’t think it is something familiar to all. Maybe only I feel this way. Living in an entirely different city with no emotions, feelings, support system, or compassion at all.

When I started dreaming, I wanted a simple life that I could spend doing the things that I adored. Spending time with my dear ones and longing for more freedom to come out of the subtly bound chains around me. I wanted a life where I could explore some lovely places with my friends and enjoy their silly jokes while drowning myself in the moment. I wanted to go out more and meet new people. I wanted to get to a stage where I can be confident about myself. I wanted all those things that a person who has been kept locked for a long time would ask for. Some of my very strong decisions were based on the fact that maybe I would get to do some of these things. But it was a naive decision, a decision that did more harm than good.

Leaving my city, I left behind some very treasured moments, and some very treasured people as well. I wanted to escape the authority of my parents but as it turns out I escaped them altogether. I wanted to escape my house and at that moment I escaped so far that there is no way I could go back. Now when I look back on those decisions, I realize that all those people that I wanted to hang out with are the very people I left behind. I left them so behind.

The city of dreams, it is called. Dreams, I realized that it broke more dreams than I ever had. I wanted to be a writer, and I still do but the belief in myself is shackled so badly that I won’t even know if it would ever return. I live in a city with the largest population yet feel so alone. I never felt that I didn’t belong. I never felt that I would be so lonely in a crowd. Never felt so much strength and weakness in being alone.

Are you okay? This question used to end by saying that I am at the top of the world and crushing it, but now it ends with a fake smile and a not-so-true yes. A lot can change in the span of mere 8 days. I changed physically and mentally.

I don’t even remember how often I used to cry back then but look at me now, I can’t remember how many days I lived without crying at all. Each day it’s the same tears but a different reason that leads to the very decision I made. People ask me to be strong, but they never tell me how. Nor do they understand what I am going through. The smile that I proudly wore is long gone and I don’t even have the strength to chase it. The glow, the sparkle, and the excitement seem like non-existent words, way far from my reality.

Each day it’s those tears that fill my eyes and break my heart, it’s those tiny water droplets that bring me to my knees sucking away all the little reasons for my happiness. I am bound by responsibilities here and some very heavy unspoken guilt that just doesn’t know how to give me even a single second to breathe.

I cry every day sitting at different places but always for the same reasons. In chasing my strength I run away from my happiness. There are some clear goals in front of me that comes with a miserable amount of pressure, but that is my life now. Showing everyone that I was here for a reason and fulfilling that when in reality I am craving a single moment of happiness.

My loved ones can’t talk to me all the time, whenever they do, I find myself lucky because at least that is the time when I get to be true to myself and face my real emotions. Other times I just seek a distraction. Any distraction can never be so big, so as to give me a sense of prolonged happiness. No friends here can be so close so as to take away my tears and no place here could be so great so as to give me a reason to smile.

It is just me wandering now on some unknown path that yields no positivity but just adds to my experience a new incident of horrifying moments.

Who am I? How am I?

To answer these questions honestly, I would have to speak my heart and my heart isn’t ready yet, there is a huge wall of pain and tears that has surrounded it. It will take an unmeasurable amount of time to actually face the sunshine, but for it to totally break, I don’t think it would ever happen.