What Freedom means to me

As a teenager, I wanted nothing more than to leave home and be free. I left at 19 years old and found that freedom came with a price - mostly in the form of bills. even though my family lived on a tight budget, I found out that independence would cost me more than I expected in the form of reduced money, time, personal safety and peace.

Not long after that I met and married my husband which restored and even exceeded my expectations of money, time and personal safety, but not much peace. This relationship ticked many boxes for me as I stepped out into my adult life, but due to its nature, there wasn't much freedom. After about 30 years it became apparent that this relationship wasn't working and I moved into my own home which of course brought less money, time, personal safety but much more peace.

The first few weeks were all stress. The settlement didn't go through smoothly and I couldn't get into the house that I'd bought and the removalists were going to take my stuff to storage. I'm surprised I didn't have a coronary. At the eleventh hour, the woman selling the house needed to stay the weekend in Newcastle which she hadn't planned to do and needed some money to pay for the hotel, which led to me running down Nelson st in Wallsend at 5.30 pm of the June long weekend trying to find an ATM to pull out cash for the woman I was buying the house from. I handed over the money for her hotel room and she handed over the house keys before the house had settled. I was able to let the removalists in, and have a roof over my head and I realised that in the same position if I were her I don't think I would have given a relative stranger the keys to a house they hadn't paid for yet. That night my brother sat with me in the new house with a few drinks and helped to settle my nerves. That brother and I never had an especially close relationship but he saved me that night, he stayed for the weekend and fixed things around the house and making it secure for my dog.

This experience not only brought me closer to my brother but it made me realise that wonderful things come out of ashes. Yes, it's a cliché, but it's true. You never know what kind of beautiful experiences and relationship lie ahead of you when you start going through the hard process of change. In a metaphorical and literal way, there are still boxes that need sorting out, but I have found peace in my own space. Now, I enjoy going home. I no longer sit in my car and wait until the last possible second before I have to go home. It's my own space.

In my marriage, I didn't have choices. My voice wasn't valid. Stepping into my power for me meant being able to recognise my voice had value. That my decisions and choices were important and I wasn't going to let someone else have that power over me and my life again. I was living in an environment and within a circle of people who it was more important to be seen to be good than to actually be yourself. The appearance of being "normal", and living how they thought I should live was suffocating.

Being able to choose my own path and live a life based on the values that I believe in was what freedom meant to me. Now, I get to choose what my house looks like, I decide when I want to eat dinner and what I want to eat, I get to choose where I go and not have someone judging where I have been.

So I understand the feeling of powerlessness, of not being able to be myself, and how hard it can be to step outside of a culture that you've been raised in. And I also understand you have to step into that power yourself and that with a little bit of support, even if that's a stranger taking a chance on you like giving you the keys to a house early, then you can find the community that YOU need to find your own freedom.