Freedom? [One very long rant]

I just want to live in the moment.
Be Free.
Free is an oxymoron isn’t it?
I mean,
It is literally interpreted as
Independent
Vacant
Uninhibited
On the loose
Allowed
Generous
Frank
None of that makes sense though.

I’m living on my own, but God knows I’m not independent
I still have to rely on the support of my mother my father
My boss.
The damn government to provide a loan so I can expand my education
The school to provide a place to live
A supermarket to supply necessary elements of survival.
My friends to deter me from throwing myself off the Golden Gate -- just like 58 others each month – when things get tough.
It’s always someone else.
I’m chained to them by money,
By love

I only wish my mind could be vacant.
But then you wouldn’t think I was an interesting person.
It would be better, though, than having my thoughts revolve around gossip and drama
And trifle little nothings like Co-op events that do no one any good.
Imagine though, I wouldn’t have a care in the world.
Not one.
Little pleasures wouldn’t be so small.
The greater things in life would be mine.
And I’d get them faster too.
Yet, I do like knowing things.
How sediments deposit on a bed.
Why 4 + 2x = 10
That ain’t isn’t a good contraction.
The way some authors can steal your attention and entrap you inside a whirlwind in 500 pages.
The persuasion and dedication of politics.
Atrocities and lessons learned from war.
There’s too much I know that boggles down my head and keeps me from being released.
And it must stay that way.

Don’t you or I ever get tired of the façade?
Being the sweet innocent girl her mother and father can be proud of?
Couldn’t I just once make a decision and not have it be a “screw up”
A calculated and erroneous misstep?
Wouldn’t you love to walk up to someone on the street,
Strike up a random conversation
Without receiving a worried glare,
An upward pointed finger?
How thrilling does it sound to run down the street,
Stark naked
And not care who sees?
Not care who cares?

So you see, here comes that oxymoronic word freedom again.
Everything it says you or I can do, the world says we cannot.

The law confines us to a house.
A mailing address.
So they can fine us and take away thousands of hard-earned dollars.
Believe it or not Mr. Tax Man, I could use that money.
And do great things with it too.
Who knows?
I could have bought the journal and the pen that would write the next Harry Potter,
The next book that could have turned a generation onto reading.
On the loose has such a negative connotation.
A prisoner, escaping a hard life in a cell, only to go out and lead a hard life on the streets.
He’s not free is he?
He’ll always be on the run from the law.
Dodging the cops, the feds, anyone who might recognize them.
Where’s the independence and inhibition in this freedom?

Allowed.
Allowed.
There’s just so much I’m not allowed to do.
I may be old enough to vote,
Join the war and die for my country.
I can buy cigarettes and porn
Start my own credit card and gain a credit score.
But God forbid I take a sip of alcohol.
Or blaze off a blunt.
I can’t buy a house or a car, or work for the top dollars.
Hell, I’m still not allowed to be out past midnight on weekdays when I go home.
I’m not allowed to borrow the car
Or jump from a plane for a skydiving experience.
I’m not allowed to feel the pinch in my skin when I want another tattoo.
Or the bite of a piercing needle.
No, I’m not allowed to be me.

I think I may have found the exception to this freedom irony.
Generosity.
That’s something we can all exhibit.
Throw a dollar a homeless woman’s way.
Help out a friend and pick her up from the airport.
Offer to do the chores for once, because you know everyone else is too busy.
Granted, we all suck at being generous sometimes.
Actually
A lot of the time.
But I want to be free, and if being generous is the only way to do that.
Then I will be.
Expect to see a nicer, more caring Erin Guenther.

And after that little glimpse of positive hope for the future of this word….
I am forced to go back and realize that this word,
This meaning.
Isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Maybe I don’t want to be free.
Because there is no such thing.