Prompt: My Moments of Liberation
This week, you felt free.
Hello there,
This week, you felt free.
You twirled to cumbia music barefoot in the sodden muddied grass at the backdoor DJ set in San Cristobal de Las Casas. You looked up at the deep pink bougainvillea against the construction site that surrounded the garden. You saw the water tank on the roof of the building next door and the clouded night sky, and you said to yourself,
“I don’t have to answer to anyone. Moving to Mexico was the best decision I ever made. I am free. I am still young.”
You returned to the city and called up all your girlfriends and invited them to go dancing. It is just passed your half birthday. You are inching closer to turning 30. You are still young, you try to tell yourself, so you must drink four different types of alcohol and dance in a club with a bunch of 24-year-old men on a Thursday night until 2 am to prove that you still have it in you. With each passing second, you’ll never be as young again as you are right now. Perhaps it doesn’t matter how old you are, you consider, as you notice your knee pain is acting up again on the dancefloor. The beats pound through your body. Perhaps all life is youth, or so says some cliched phrase.
Last month, when walking around in Polanco, you stopped in Santa Clara. You drank chocolate milk, fresh from the refrigerator, at 5 pm in the afternoon. You are convinced this is the height of adulting.
You can’t deny it. Spilling your feelings about a man you had been in love with for a year has left you weightless. The heaviness of well-kept secrets and feelings is no longer wearing you down. There are familiar male faces resurfacing with new messages to you on your phone. Did they know? It’s like the universe has shifted energetically and their spirits noticed the tiny space you’ve cleared for yourself. They immediately lurched in and grabbed an inch for each of themselves.
You discover a dirty pair of your polka-dotted socks buried in the pillows of your couch. You left them there, as you tend to do when you come home and take off your shoes after work. No one was around to tell you to pick them up because they ruined the clean aesthetic of your typical home. Instead, your dirty socks had faded into the distance of your daily passings, until now. It always bothers you to find dirty items of clothing you forget to send to the wash. It is always something. You are never perfect.
Prompt
Share with us:
What was a recent moment of liberation for you? What makes you feel liberated? What makes you feel young?
Do you like dancing? If so, when was the last time you danced and had fun? When is the next time you will dance? Mark a date, time, and place in your calendar for dancing, if you dare.
Tell us about a treat you like to eat, when you should be saving room for dinner. What are your guilty pleasures?
Is there a person in your life that makes you feel lighter and freer? Tell us about them.
Are there certain activities you only do in the privacy of your own home that you never tell anyone about?
Paid subscribers are invited to overshare in the comments 🤓.
Sending you good vibes for the weekend as always.
Love,
Tash Doherty
💌 ✍️
Author of These Perfectly Careless Things, a cuming-of-age teen romance novel 📚
Blogger at TashDoherty.com
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