Sing it.

Freedom. The idea of it haunts me.  Whilst driving in my car, going for a walk, before I go to sleep. It’s always there scratching at the walls of my grey matter, an itch I can never quite reach. I went in search of freedom when I left for America and I’m still not sure I ever found it.  Bits of it perhaps, small sweet morsels that I savored and rolled over my tongue, but inevitably it melted away before I could identify any of the defining traits of it and so I'm back to square #1.

Over breakfast Poxy does my numerology chart and my root number ends up being 5. She flips through her book and opens a page with a big heading that reads: “Don’t cage me in.” Yes, I decide. I am a 5. Don’t cage me in. Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t marry me. Don’t have babies with me. Don’t expect the same reply from me everyday. Don’t become predictable. Don’t put me in a box. Don’t define me as one thing only. Don’t assume to know me. Don't expect too many things of me.  Don’t don’t don’t.

Ever since I’ve been back in SA I have had little good to say about being here, but the truth is that when I went abroad I gained one freedom and lost the other. I gained America but lost all sense of privacy because I had to live with people in small confined spaces for most of my trip. I had to give up my own head space completely and perhaps that was the most difficult thing to do. In many respects I lost my independance because I consistently needed other people to take me, drive me around and feed me.  At the same time I gained the freedom of movement, of choosing where and when and for how long. I gained the privilege of snap decision, of very little responsibility except to myself. I had to pay a price for it though.

Today I signed a 1 year lease on a flat that will cost me twice as much as the one I lived in before with half the features. My overheads will have more than doubled in the last six months, but hey, I am still a single woman without kids or a family. The only person I can really let down is myself.  I am jobless at the moment, a small fact I might be able to remedy but it still remains to be seen. It’s starting to knaw at me. My sleep cycle has gone to the birds and my brain spins like a hamster on a wheel when the lights go out.

I go for tea at a friend’s house and she encourages me to get a full time job. “I just think you’ll be great in that kind of set-up,” she says. “You know, working with a group, being in an office, that sort of thing.” I cringe. The idea of spending every single day in the same place with the same people doing exactly the same thing is enough to bring on nausea. Meeting with a crew once or twice a week and working on my own for the rest of the time, no there’s a recipe I can deal with.  Send me on assignment for God's sake, let's pretend I'm 007 for a second and you can send me to as many tropical islands as you like, but just please, please don't put me into an office for 8 hours a day.

Perhaps I lie to myself about all of this. The question becomes: what is freedom? How does one define it? How does Nelson Mandela live in a cage for so many years and come out being so nice. How do people go to war, live as slaves and still come out smiling and having joy inside of them? Their secret surely is the realisation that no one can cage you in and that any perception that you might have that suggests that you are not free is an illusion. Can someone please upgrade my hard drive?

Maybe I’ve watched the Matrix a couple times too many. Maybe I read too many self-help books. Maybe I’m just a privileged girl from a rich family who thinks she is privy to too much.

To Alice there is nothing more important than freedom.