It’s like being in a cell without even the smallest of cracks for a window. It’s like being chained to a wall while rusty cuffs threaten to break the delicate skin of the wrist of the prisoner who dares to struggle to break away. I am that prisoner, and there is nothing that I detest more.
I am confined. I am confined everywhere I go; my house, on a run, my school. I can’t go anywhere to be truly free- to let my spirit run and gallop as it pleases. Granted, I’m a teenager so of course I have parents who reign me in and tell me “I don’t care if you do this” and “You sure as hell better not be thinking of doing that”. This, however, is exactly the thing that oppresses me.

Freedom. The inherent quality of making one’s own decisions without the constraints of others. Freedom. Something that humans have craved and fought for since the dawn of time. Freedom. The very thing that I feel stripped of, the very thing that seems to slither like a snake in grass, out of my reach.

My house is dysfunctional. Not the crazy-funny dysfunctional so carelessly portrayed on the television, but true dysfunctional. Yelling, frequent World Wars, words like acid spat at each other on the daily. In a house so big, I have never felt more claustrophobic. I dream of the days when I am away, chasing the unknown purely because I can. These reveries are what drag me through this slavery.

My fascination with freedom began when I was in the fifth grade, studying the American Revolution. Me, the history nerd, pouring over every page in the monotonous textbook, reading as if it were a story. Riveting, but fictional. How was it that a small group of people overthrew such an oppressing monarch? How could I apply this to my current and future situations? For years, I stumbled through a thicket of confusion, so desperately searching. Whenever I believed I caught a glimmer of that evasive state of being, it slipped away quicker than water through fingers.

Around the time I became a teenager, the concept of freedom turned me into a full-fledged rebel. That’s what freedom was. Rebelling against the norm, against society, against my own family. I had resolved to make myself as different as possible in order to anger the people around me. I was going to dress like a scene kid, and think that the world was one big dark place with new horrors around every corner. Needless to say, I was miserable. And probably more annoying than a Chihuahua.

What else could I do? This was my warped view of freedom, something that could be snatched and molded like clay into the exact form I wanted it to be. The years wove on, and I lost sight of that sly fox. I began to think I was never to be free, that I was to remain chained to society’s droning concept of freedom and to the expectations of those around me. What was a simple girl like me to do?

That façade shattered in February. It was mid-winter, so naturally everything around me was manic-depressive. The sky was that muted grey, like the soiled slush that piles up on the side of the road, the kind no one really wants to look at. The trees were bare and dead, and the ground was muddy and a brown so displeasing to the eye, one might cringe by simply looking at it. On a day like that, freedom hit me like a solid brick wall.

It’s one of those days when I wish I had never woken up.

I tug at my hair, screw up my eyes, and hum loudly. But nothing I do can block it out.

Stop. Stop. Stop.

All the screaming. All the fighting. All the plates smashing, cracking, breaking. Everyone is snapping. I have to get away. This place is a cell, and I will no longer be its prisoner. Up the stairs, to the window, bust out the screen and slide down the roof. Over the yelling no one hears the thud! of my body hitting the deck. I stumble over to the railing, swing my legs over the weathered wood, and land softly on the grass.
I start to run. And I run, with no direction, no thoughts, no reason. I just run. My legs burn, my heart pounds, my head hurts but none of this is enough to make me even think about stopping. The wind whips at my face and the leaves tangle in my hair. My shoes stomp on the ground, and twigs try to snake their way up my ankles to trip me. But I keep running.

Freedom. I am running for my freedom. Because in those few moments, I am truly free. The freedom that I have spent the better part of my life trying to locate has finally washed through me, like a tsunami. I am free from all the pain, the anger, and the hate that lies in the house somewhere behind me.

My freedom. Almost a tangible thing. The farther I run, the closer I get. I could leave it all behind. I could forget everyone in this wretched world and create one of refuge. Just freedom and me.
And then my knees hit the ground. The trees around me offer solace, protection. Rocks dig into the bones of my knees, but I pay no attention. I look wildly around, searching for freedom. It has left me just as quickly as it came. Perhaps it is lurking behind some twisted, gnarled branch, or under a dead, rotted leaf. The silence presses on my eardrums, but I have never heard anything quite so loud.
I am there, on the ground, staring up at the darkening sky. Who am I? Where did I come from? Where did my freedom go? How could I lose something I’ve barely found? These questions that seem as old as life itself resonate heavily in my mind.

Before I know it, I'm crying. Deep shuddering breaths, thick, lolling tears, all the fibers of a true breakdown. I cry as I have never cried before. Every bad thing, every hurtful action I have seen comes out through my sobs. They fall despairingly to the ground, where the Earth sucks them in, so that they may be delivered to some other unsuspecting soul.

I am alone. Even freedom has left me completely now. I am alone with nothing but a dark slate for a mind, with no light, no new path. Will I forever be chasing after something that doesn’t want to be caught? Nowhere to go, nowhere to run. I am about to lose myself completely, when out of some unknown abyss, a bright meteor burns straight through the black sky of my mind. The tears stop falling and with a sharp gasp, I look wildly up to the sky as enlightenment illuminates my world. A candle has been lit within me.

Freedom is not something to be entitled to. Freedom is something to be earned.

I chased it, true. But it was not mine to chase. I wasn't supposed to run away from every problem and say 'screw it' I am supposed to pay my dues. To face the hardships now, and be rewarded later. I must earn it.

All these years, I have fought a lost battle. I have fought so desperately against an idea that is older than the universe with no understanding whatsoever of the consequences, should I succeed. I cannot claim what I do not own.

Though freedom lingers all around us, we do not just take it and cast it away. We must fully embrace it, and only when we are ready. Whether it be on the day we move into a new apartment, or the day our heart ceases to beat, it will only come when fully and rightfully called.
Freedom will forever be by our side, but it will not be subjected to fickleness or carelessness.

This understanding causes a fresh wave of tears to cascade down my face, but this time out of relief. How glorious it is to finally understand something the philosophers spend their entire lives trying to piece together. I understand. I pick myself up and stand breathing the night air. What was once an iron suffocating me is now only a feather that tickles me under the chin.

I do not run back. Why should I? I walk, reveling in the night's silence, the peaceful bliss of newfound knowledge. The journey back takes much less time than the journey away, now that my mind is fully conscious. Before me stands the house. What awaits beyond the doors, I do not know, but I will face it with my chin up. I pause on the outskirts of the woods, just beyond the yard's barrier. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, and when I open them, the smallest of smiles plays on my lips.

And I continue forward with freedom by my