I read a book that asked me to picture my future self. In ten years, how did I want to look? What did I want to be like? If I were free to grow and be truly, fully myself, what would I want? So I tried to picture myself completely free of other people's expectations. At first, I pictured myself as one of those women in soft flowy comfortable clothes that curl themselves up in a chair with their feet under them and listen to you talk and make you feel good and offer you tea that does something for "gut health," and behind them are colorful pictures on the wall and their homes are eclectic and fun and exciting but somehow still calming. And I like those women. But then I thought about how I hate clutter and tea and clothes without defined waists, and decided maybe I don't want to BE that woman as much as VISIT that woman.
So I tried again to imagine future me, and I started to worry that maybe if you let me feel really REALLY free, I might get really really weird. And not a fun weird. Left to my own devices, maybe I'd walk around town with a sketch pad, full of stick people with orange ponytails. Maybe I'd set up an easel on the corner and offer to do caricatures for passersby, but I'd just draw THEM as stick people with orange ponytails, because that would make me laugh. And I'd require payment in candy. And if I got too comfortable, in every store I visited, I'd be patting cashiers on the hand saying, "You're doing a good job, Honey," which is cute if you're 90, but maybe creepy before 90.
And what if I started feeling so free I wore a live cat for a hat, or maybe a fluffy pomeranian. Maybe I'd finally find my left wireless earbud and roam around singing out loud with my music - which is what I do already when I'm running on a street with loud traffic, so I can tell I'm only a few years away.
And what if I felt sooo free that I always wear knee socks and sweaters no matter the season, bc that's what I basically always wish I had on now, and a hat with earflaps on the days the I can't find the cat, bc I hate and i mean HATE for any part of me to be cold. What if I patted trees as I passed them, and talked to cute patches of moss, and trained a robin to ride on my shoulder like the old man in The Secret Garden...
and it's times like these that I just wonder if maybe too much freedom is frightening.
