Finally, gloriously free!

My anthem of liberation...

I hear a song. My favourite song...

It triggers a memory long buried under the pressures of my adult life. It's been buried under stacks of cover letters and countless versions of my CV.

I had moved on. I didn't care anymore who you were to me and what you meant in my life. I no longer carried a gaping hole in my heart where you had ripped the chords that once tied our souls together.

It's been a whole year since I last broke down in tears at the sight of you and that sly fox you now date. 10 months since I went through your page as a form of torture, as if to tell myself, my other half has found another half and I just might never be whole again. But that was then.

It's been 9 months since my transformation began. Since I made a promise to myself: I would never again hide my intelligence to make a man feel less threatened. I am a brilliant woman who shouldn't have to dim her light. I should never have to act dumb to make a man feel good about himself.

I finally recognized the pattern - if a man felt threatened by me from the start, he would only keep pushing me down, his ego an endless void needing to be filled.

8 months since I decided to throw myself into my dreams with my whole heart knowing it would complete me, fill up the void you left in my life. I started applying for roles like my life depended on it. Because it did—I would rather die than become a man's accessory for the rest of my life.

I have since moved on—so to say the song I just heard is my favourite song should be an error. I do not even like the artiste. I would say I hate him but I have never been comfortable with the word, hate. But I listened to the song everyday until I found it tolerable, until I found myself unconsciously swaying to its rhythm.

Until I could identify the song from the first note, until the words started to make sense to me, until it began to convey an even deeper meaning. One I would come to identify as an unconscious desire to love everything that you love.

Months after you left, I listened to the song everyday deluding myself that you were still mine, somehow. That I had not completely lost you. That what we had was the love for fairytales, for books, for movies, the love that extends through death to the eternity to come.

I would sing every word, consuming the lyrics like someone in a dessert would gobble down water. Citing the lyrics with such fervency like they were incantations to bring you back to me.

Eventually I grew bored. Bored of the pain I was inflicting on myself, bored of the groggy voice of the artiste that auto-tune could barely fix. Bored of those words because they had lost their effect. They held no appeal to me any longer.

It's been 6 months since I started entertaining men again. But this time I've made sure to give an audience only to intelligent men. Men that did not scramble to hold a conversation with me. Men who do not pause when I say "complex" words as if trying to decipher the meaning, making each conversation laborious. Men who listened to my dreams with interest rather than intimidation, who understood the magnitude of my ambitions.

It's been 4 months since I got a new job. My liberation! 4 months of earning what has given me so much more sustenance than all your ego-feeding gifts ever did. 4 months of freedom from men who use their money before their words, so they sound less vulgar, less irritating to the hearer.

It's been 2 months since my boss-a man-sat me down and asked for my opinion on something. He said there was a resilience about me. He noted my drive to solve problems before others even see them.

How do I tell him it was born from a deep resentment of the girl I had to become to please you, how do I explain that I'm racing against time to become everything I was afraid to be with you?

Now that I hear this song, I realise that it still is my favourite but for entirely different reasons. It has become my anthem of liberation. It reminds me of the bullet I dodged when you walked out of my life. It marks how far I've come from that lovesick girl who followed you around, suppressing her dreams to amplify your worth.

It reminds me of who I'll never be again—the woman stuck by your side as a mere accessory, laughing at your hollow jokes and pretending your excesses were acceptable. It reminds me of how far I have come, how much work I had to do to be the woman I now am.

I find myself swaying to its rhythm once again but this time it's with the lightness of a bird in flight, a bird set free.

Finally, gloriously free…

🧡Fedy.

P.S. It's been a minute! I'm so sorry for the delay with content..

Maybe one day I'll explain what happened to me in the month of January but for now… keep enjoying Finding Fedy 😘😘😘😘