Personal Liberation

I am forty years old, and I got my ears pierced for the first time yesterday.  That may not seem like too dramatic of an event, but, believe me, for me it is.  

You see, all the time I was growing up, I wanted to get my ears pierced.  But I couldn't.  One, my mother did not agree with pierced ears.  She never had hers done.  She tried to tell me how big of a decision it would be to poke a hole through one's ear, how it could get infected, how much it would hurt.  She made a deal with me that I could get my ears pierced when I turned fourteen.  (That was the age my sister had her ears pierced, and, of course, I had to be the same).  I agreed.  

Then the AIDS virus happened.  My mom, who had incredible fears and anxiety, told me she did not trust getting my ears pierced.  She told me if AIDS was still around when I was fourteen, I was not allowed to get my ears pierced, because there could be a drop of blood left on the gun used for ear piercing that did not get cleaned off and it could get into the new hole, spreading the virus.  

I gave up.  I told everyone I decided I did not want my ears pierced.  

In actuality, I did want my ears pierced, but I knew it was not worth the argument.  It was not worth the psychological distress that would follow the argument (when I disagreed with my mom, I always felt like the bad guy for having a different opinion.  I was expected to agree). So I kept my feelings to myself.  Even after she died in 2000, when I was a just two months short of my twenty-fifth birthday, I lived in guilt and fear.  I tried to hold to the ideas and standards she set for me.  

Slowly, I learned to make mistakes.  That may not sound like a big deal.  But it was.  I made decisions in my late twenties that most people make in their teens, but I had never been allowed to make them in my teenage years.  Maybe that's why I didn't get my ears pierced until yesterday.  I was finally able to put the past arguments behind and just do it.  It was a sign of liberation that began just a few years ago.  

I have to say for the past few weeks, I have experienced a lot of liberation.  I have written frequently about my liberation from spiritual abuse, from emotional abuse, from my own fears and anxieties.  However, this new liberation began when I started writing my first real fiction project.  Other than short stories in high school or for a journalism class I took, I have never written fiction.  But I had a dream one night in which I dreamed two characters.  When I woke up, I knew what the story line would be.  I sat down and began writing scenes - in no particular order.  

One of my characters, in particular, is a lot like me.  He has lived in my life in many ways, but in a completely different setting.  He has a lot of my ideas, a lot of my struggles.  He, also, has to be liberated.  He's learning that, slowly but surely, in the scenes that I am writing.  

This week, I surprised myself with a scene that I wrote for this particular project.  It's, to put it bluntly, a sex scene.  I took it to the writers' group I am a part of.  People seemed to like it.  At least, they told me they could picture what I had written.  I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not, given the type of scene it is.  (Just kidding).  

A few years ago, I would never have written that scene  - or at least I would have never shown it to anyone.  I would have been too ashamed.  I was thinking this morning about a song that I wrote in my early twenties.  It's a song called "Heaven-Bound" or "The Ring."  I could never decide which title was more appropriate.  Being honest, it is probably the best song that I have ever written, and I've written some pretty good ones.  Not to sound egotistical, but it is a good song.  I have always liked it.  I'm pretty sure it could have gone "somewhere" - that proverbial, ideal place where people know who wrote it. Maybe it still could.  But I was afraid to show it to anyone, because it would have led to arguments with my mother over the content.  Even my cutesy love songs ended up in arguments because of her beliefs about love and sex and relationships.  Though there was nothing whatsoever inappropriate in this song, it would have caused problems.  So I kept it to myself.  

I think, though, now I am done with that part of myself.  I am done keeping my ideas to myself - even if those ideas are blush-worthy scenes in a fiction work.  This fiction work has become euphoria to me.  It is a release to me.  No matter if this book ever makes it to publication or not, it has helped me in my process of personal liberation.  I'll keep writing as the characters and scenes reveal themselves to me.