Freedom is…

Freedom is…

Being able to feel safe

Knowing someone will catch you when you fall

Working with a team that you trust

Listening to someone play for you a part they’ve practiced for weeks

Feeling the love of your family, chose or otherwise

Knowing that someone is happy because of you

Teaching a child a skill that they need or want to learn

Kneeling in prayer to your Higher Power

Being able to protect yourself and those you care about, from words or actions

Being who you are without apology

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There is an endless list for what freedom is for me, for my family, for those I care about. It’s not something I always think about, but after an incident in my family last night I was struck by it. There are things that I am not allowed to do and there are good reasons for it. Sometimes I chafe at them, but I still must live by them. I forget that though I am restricted in a lot of things there is even more that I am not restricted when many others are.

Freedom is being able to live and not just survive.

This little walk was inspired by the revisit of the Dungeon Prompt:  Freedom in the Modern World that Sreejit is doing. I can’t include his response for this one because it has mysteriously disappeared this morning from the internet.

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Walking With Reason

One by one her children, those that she was able to save, were sent far far away from where she was. She would never be able to watch them grow, never see what they would make of themselves. But it was enough to know that they would be alive in order to do those things in the first place.

She did not speak to all of them, only a small number would ever hear her voice even if they did not remember it. Some would, though her exhausted whispers would only feature as strange mutterings in their dreams in a language that they would never be able to understand. Others would hear the words distinctly, but still be unable to understand what the words were saying. Some would try to remember and transcribe the few words down and then spend a lifetime trying to translate them. An even smaller amount would find anything that would come close to the correct words.

Many would never even think about it, they would just shrug their shoulder and move on with their lives. If they even acknowledged it in the first place.

Not all of her children were even aware that they were not the biological offspring of the people who raised them. This was true also for those who raised them. Some of the parents were aware that their children came from someone else, but others believed they were their naturally born children. They had given birth to them after all.

It was a tricky balance that she had to keep in order to save the children she was able to. She always at least thought the same words whenever they were sent away.

“My children, you are more than enough to make me keep trying for freedom.”

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Written for the first prompt of Season 2 in the Dungeon Prompts.

If you’re going through hell, keep going.  –Winston Churchill

http://theseekersdungeon.com/2014/01/02/dungeon-prompts-season-2-week-1-motivation/#comment-5815