this is where I feel free

Growing up I didn’t have any rules to follow. We didn’t have a bedtime and we never brushed our hair. We could live off chocolate bars and sunshine and no one told us what to wear. We drank Mountain Dew by the liter and played video games until the sun was a gold line on the horizon at dawn. I’d run around barefoot in Dad’s threadbare Styx t-shirt with no pants and my brother wore bright green sweatpants in the dead of summer. We’d walk for miles in the desert, crossing no trespassing signs and ducking underneath barbed wire fences, jumping from the broken limbs of Joshua trees and pretending the desert floor was lava. This was what freedom felt like.

As I grew older, the sadness of the world crept its way into my consciousness, but somehow I still found ways to get lost in my freedom. I’d stay out late, well into the lost hours of the night, and stare at the stars in the same deserts I wandered as a kid. I’d lose whole days to the worlds of books and eat Oreo’s by the sleeve full. I’d drive around with no plans and nowhere to go, the windows down and the music so loud that it swallowed up the sound of the wind. I felt so damn free.

Last night as I was watching the tops of the trees turn gold with the beginning of the sunset, I called to Perry from the porch and said we should go for a drive. We drove to Inspiration Point to finish out the sunset. It started raining and we piled back into the car. Waiting for blue hour, we listened to the rain in the trees, and when the view disappeared into the night we drove around with the windows down and blasted Shakey Graves. The air was wet and my arms were covered in chills and I thought about how free I felt in this moment. The world is crumbling, our responsibilities are mounting, and our entire existence is uncertain, but this moment is ours and it is free. This life is not about having more or doing more, it’s about the living itself. Living in a way that makes you notice the little things, the tiny moments, the freedom in simplicity. Driving with the windows down and feeling the rain on your face and saying I love you even if no one can hear you over the music. This is where I feel free.