On Connection & Freedom

Yesterday I drove to Berkeley. The air there smells like freedom. I parked my car on the furthest Northwest end of campus and walked all the way up the hill to my first taste of independence, my dormitory. Very early on, I sat on the wall of the Greek Theater with a sandy-brown haired boy for company and looked onto the twinkling lights of the Bay. “No one knows where I am. No one expects me to do anything or be anywhere. My time is completely my own,” I ranted. I was awestruck. I had never felt so alive.

“As adults, we know that caretaking doesn’t have to be a sacrifice,” my therapist said recently. I wrote it down. Circled it with question marks. Do we know that?

We decided that, because I felt the need to take care of people my entire childhood, the lack of responsibility I felt as a young adult—the freedom I associated with it—became my source of joy, of love. This overflow of love and joy lasted almost two decades. And then, when I had children, the responsibility triggered something for me.

I felt like I was losing my freedom. So I fought. Arguably, I’ve been fighting for more than seven years now.  

Sometimes I go to Berkeley. There, I am light. I float.  

But.

What if there is a greater high?

Consider the concept of being “in the flow.” Artists speak of this when creativity seems to come from somewhere beyond themselves. Committed athletes frequent this place, or so I hear. And what is it? To be in sync with the flow of the universe, with God or whatever higher power you subscribe to, is to be completely connected again.

I like Luang’s quotation in White Lotus season 3 as an explanation: “When you’re born, you are like a single drop of water, flying upward, separated from the one, giant consciousness. You get older. You descend back down. You die. You land back into the water, become one with the ocean again. No more separated. No more suffering. One consciousness.”

And what if it is this connection to the one, giant consciousness that is the ultimate high also known as the ultimate lack of suffering? Ram Dass says something similar: “We’re here to awaken from the illusion of separateness.”

The little droplet, fighting gravity.  

Freedom, by definition, is to be disconnected from something. What if the ultimate gift of this life is, instead, feeling our connection?

And if connection is the ultimate goal, then as a mother to three young children, I’ve been given the ultimate opportunity. To connect.

What if, instead of seeking freedom, I sought connection? What would that feel like?