Freedom

The room is dark except for a small light coming from the television. The volume is on low and the pictures continue to change. 

I sit up and look around. What happened? I think. Why am I on the couch and why is the volume turned down?

Everything is in its place, but everything seems out of place. Who is home? Where’s my husband? Did he go up to the bedroom and leave me here? So unlike him. 

And this dream. This dream. Too fitting that I awakened alone, in a dark room with a flickering light. Everything feels eerie and lonesome. Even the windows are cracked allowing for a gentle breeze to creep up the back of my neck. 

Creep. Creep. Creep.
I stand up and move toward that window. Why is it open? The breeze pushes the curtain forward and the air feels colder and colder as I approach it. 

I feel like I can’t look out of the window. Who knows what might be standing below. Is someone watching me? Is this someone the creep in my dream? The creep that left this window open so that the cold breeze could wake me at just the right hour? And perhaps he’s also the one who left the TV on, but was careful to lower the volume so that I could hear the rustling leaves through the window. 

The trees sway and the silence increases. I don’t like this silence. 

I wish I could look out the window. It’s open and the curtains are pulled. It’s almost inviting me to come closer. To take a look. To stop being afraid. It’s the window I’ve desired for so long now. To step outside, to taste freedom, to be unafraid of what lies beyond my window. 

I asked for it. I asked him to let me go. To let me step out and face what was intimidating me, but he didn’t think I was ready. He didn’t think it was time yet for me to face it. I stomped my feet and my eyes swelled up. Why can’t I just be like everyone else? Why do I have to be afraid of stepping out, of showing my real face? Why can’t I just be accepted? 

Yes, like those women I used to watch from the coffee shop. They’d walk around in their skinny jeans and big hats. They’d go in and out of stores, their hands filled with bags that multiplied. They looked so happy. Happy to be together, happy to have new items to fill their closets. Happy and carefree. I’d sit there on the patio of the shop and wonder how they got there. Why couldn’t I have that? 

All I want is to be carefree. To let go and laugh. I step forward with my eyes closed and place my right hand on the screen of the window. With a deep breath, I open my eyes. The trees continue to sway as the wind dances among them. It’s quiet, just one light illuminating the entire street. It looks calm. Lonely, but calm. 

Why not? Why can’t I be like everyone else? It's time. I turn around and head for the door. I slip on some flip flops and go for the door handle. I can do this, it’s no big deal. With another deep breath I open the door and take my first step outside. It’s now or never. 

As I stand outside the front of my house, I look up and there it is. That damn window. Open for so much of my life and yet it kept me shut in. That damn window always teased me. Wide open, but nowhere to go. Nowhere to exit from. Just taunted me and reminded me that I wasn’t truly free. 

It was the door I needed all along. 

The door remained closed, but I was able to access freedom through it. I would never allow that window to keep me closed in, ever again. I was leaving to a place where only doors existed. No windows that painted a facade of freedom. It was a lie. I need doors in my life. Only doors. 

I walked. 

I walked without direction and without fear. I was out and I would never go back. I walked until I saw the tracks. I always heard the train pass through our town through our open window. I followed the tracks and kept following until I came upon a ticket office. 

I didn’t have any money on me, but I’d make a way on that train so that I could get very far and never look back. 

“Excuse me, how much for a one-way ticket to Mobile?” I asked. 

“$6.50,” she said. 

I turned away. Discouraged, where will I find $6.50? Maybe I was crazy to think I could actually leave this place. I should have never believed I would be capable. I wasn’t even capable of remembering a sweater.

“Excuse me, miss, are you okay?”

Am I?