This week, your prompt is a simple concept that can be fraught with complication.
You have 400 words to write a fiction or creative non-fiction piece about freedom, in any way that makes sense to you.
From Red Writing Hood at Write On Edge
I used something I had just recently written for another project.
Letting go was difficult, really difficult. At the same time it was one of the most freeing feelings I’d ever experienced.
My biggest issue over the last five years or so, was that I had always left a tiny sliver of hope alive. Hope that we could find a neutral place to have a relationship in. Hope that somehow we could just once have a conversation that didn’t decline into some sort of competition of crazy. Hope that we could meet in person and not have it include a public display of an emotional tantrum. Hope that my husband could have relationship with his sister, but not realizing that it was my hope, projected onto him by me, and not his hope.
Keeping that hope alive was akin to keeping a candle of anger burning in the back of my head. Because with the sliver of hope came the acknowledgement of all that had gone wrong in the past. I had no ability to separate hope for the future with anger over the past. The mere act of having to hold onto hope for the future just reminded me of the awful that had filled the past. The pain, the frustration, the hurt, the anger, all of it was kept burning with that sliver of hope.
It was time to blow out the candle. There was not going to be a neutral relationship where we could pretend to get along. That’s all it would be, pretend, not real, not honest, not free from the anger. It was time to let it all go.
I felt relief. I’d never again bite my tongue while watching her hurt someone I loved. I wouldn’t proofread correspondence six times to make sure I wasn’t saying something that would flip her switch and start her on one of her tantrums. It no longer mattered what she thought of me. To care what a crazy person thought of me was a kind of insanity I no longer needed to carry around with me.
I felt like I was taking off a thick, heavy coat too late in spring. I felt the weight of it slip away as the freedom of moving forward opened up the world in front of me.
***Ally
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7 comments:
I agree. I don't think there is anything quite like finally letting go of something like that. But it is amazing how much better you feel afterward. Nice job.
That's an amazing sense of freedom, letting go of a toxic relationship and all of the baggage it carries around with it!
Nothing weighs you down more than having to be someone you are not...because of having to project something you don't feel. Or covering up feelings you do have in order to protect others. Walking on pins and needles all the time wears on a person. I know well of this type of relationship, and it is toxic. I'm so glad you freed yourself from it. In doing that, you actually freed everyone else, because then you could be yourself and give your husband the Ally he deserved. Nice writing!
Your writing is so strong and compelling. Love this post. Glad you let go.
LOVE THIS!!
I'm happy for you. What a load off!
I love the analogy of the heavy coat too late in the spring the best. Liberation is certainly easier apparel to don. Well done!
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