On independence

Why would you think independence falls into the same category with beer, football, and messy toilet seats? Because it’s a guy thing. It’s the first thing they tell you when you start seeing them along with their favorite players in Man United. It’s a totally guy thing, invented by them, enjoyed and solely used by them. ‘Oh, I like you but I don’t want to lose my independence’. In opposed to what? Slavery? Heck,  they think so highly of it, they might as well all celebrate on Independence day, afterall  it was 56 who started it and now they got half the population of the world as followers! Forget the historic meaning of the day, this is much bigger! This is half humanity who swears by the word, shivering with the single thought of losing it. I mean, what do they think that we gonna do anyway? chain them down with iron-balls and put them into hard labor? I never heard of a woman saying ‘hey  babe, I would see you tonight, but I’ve got to go down the pub with my mates for a beer, it’s foottie night!’ No, because us women ( except for the fact that we don’t drink beer and watch football) deep down  we do want to lose our independence! Still hanging on the fairytale’s happy ending that the prince will show up and life will become better in an instant, we don’t mind giving up our freedom for the sake of a good date, many times canceling already made plans when that  phonecall comes the last minute. Many of you might say, no, not me, but I know, I’ve lived it with all my girlfriends over and over, I’ve been there and done it myself. I’m not saying that either of us should be available 24/7, that’s boring and wrong. Is just that over the years the realization came that freedom comes from within. The same freedom that kept Nelson Mandella’s mind independent for 27 years imprisonment, the same freedom that you can have when you are in a bad job, in a bad marriage, in a situation you don’t want to be in, it’s the free spirit in all of us that keeps us going when it gets tough. Independence has little to do with the outside and lots to do with the inner world. 

Do you feel at peace in your own skin, alone, doing nothing but just enjoying your own company? Do you feel aligned, body and spirit? Are you honest with everyone around you, including yourself? Have you stopped taking things personally ? How attached are you from all things that make up your life today? Are you here, now? These and many others are just examples of the locks we all have to our own chains that keep us slaves to our thoughts ,our minds. Having been a free spirit all my life, I strived for nothing else, than to achieve just that. I’ve watched my outside world falling apart over and over but I wouldn’t give up the fight for ‘the precious’. It’s taken a long and steep road to get to where I am today.

The inner freedom that I experience lately, allows space for spontaneity, for my day to develop as I want it, sucking as much enjoyment of it as I feel like it, when I feel like it. Even when I do chores that I don’t particularly enjoy, I think of all the positive things that can come out of it, and that helps me being more focused to the work at hand, being from washing-up to filling-up tax forms. Staying in the moment, not letting your mind drift away to the tomorrow’s and the yesterday’s allows you to enter into a ‘portal’ of freedom that has no boundaries, inner or outer.  But freedom requires discipline, otherwise you wouldn’t know you had it! Anyhow, I’m not sure now how we came to that, I started off with the independence issue, a hot issue for all of us. To me, independence is detachment. Recognizing that my thoughts create my emotions and they create the attachments to this and that, was the first step I took towards true independence. Detachment. Knowing that without nothing, sleeping under the stars, I’ll still be happy. Very happy. Everything passes and nothing passes, a friend reminded me the other day, a phrase he uses very often. 

So, back to the guys and their independence.  They can be as free as they like, out with their mates, flirting with girls in bars, what have you whilst in reality they longed to be curled with you in bed sipping wine and exchanging oil massages….but no, they’ve got to honor their independence and do their thing.  And to be quite honest…. I like it! The sight of neediness and clinginess I see in so many couples (and particularly women) around me, gives me the chills and personally I’m not going down that road again. I believe we all need space to grow and keep developing our personalities whether in a relationship or not. It just dawned on me now that I brought that issue up because I’m dealing with it lately, with standing on my own feet. Apparently it’s the reason that my last relationship ended, I became too dependent on him, with no life of my own. Is it true? I don’t know, yes and no. What I saw as a natural development in a relationship after a year’s time, he saw as dependence. So, I’m not clear about that yet. 

Could it be that our need for love overcasts our individuality and we forget who we were when the prince comes along and we ride on his horse? Or is it simple-and ever-present- insecurity? Do I need love, or do I want love? I believe that I want a guy who wants me, not a guy who needs me. Who wants to love me and I want to love him back. Neediness has no space in my life anymore. And so, this is my declaration of independence, I sign it today and try and remember it tomorrow when old patterns resurface and new challenges come….

Con mucho amor,

Tabitha