Some Limits Were Made to Be Chucked Out the Sunroof

I do a lot of intentional work around my emotions, probably more than the average person, and not too long ago I decided that freedom was the emotion I wanted to cultivate in my life. Not happiness or success or even peace. Freedom. I wanted to know what it would feel like to wake up and have control over the cadence of my own day, to have more choice about where my time and energy went instead of feeling like they already belonged to everyone else.

That realization was actually a big part of why I decided to close my business. After all these years, I had built something I was incredibly proud of, but I had also built something that required a lot of me. More than I wanted to keep giving. I knew I didn't want to retire and I definitely didn't want to stop helping people, but I wanted to do it differently. I wanted more control over how I worked, when I worked and how much of myself I gave away in the process.

So I've been thinking a lot about what freedom actually means.

Is it having enough money that you don't have to worry about it? No obligations? Waking up whenever you want, going wherever you want, buying what you want, living wherever you want? Is it having nobody waiting for you or depending on you or asking you what we're having for dinner when you truly could not care less what we're having for dinner?

I don't think freedom looks the same for everyone, which is probably why it's so hard to define.

I live pretty deep in the mountains, and I chose that on purpose. I've lived in cities with traffic and lots of people and noise and everything you could possibly want within fifteen minutes of you, and I don't want to live that way anymore. I want to walk outside and see mountains and wildlife. I want to feel safe. I want to be able to disappear into nature without making a reservation or sitting in traffic to get there. There is something about being surrounded by all of this beautiful open space that makes me feel truly free.

Of course, that freedom comes with a price. Everything is more expensive. We have fewer restaurants, stores, doctors, flights and fewer choices in general. There are plenty of things that are incredibly convenient when you live in a city that are not remotely convenient here. Sometimes you need something and the answer is basically, well shit, I guess I’m headed to Denver.

But I chose the tradeoff. I would rather have the mountains and the vast open space.

What's interesting is that even though I've intentionally created a life in a place that represents freedom to me, the last couple of years I have felt increasingly less free.

A lot of that has come from being the person everyone depends on, and I don't mean that in a poor-me kind of way because, if I'm being fair, I've had a pretty big hand in creating that role for myself. I'm capable, I'm assertive, I make decisions easily and I'm pretty good at figuring things out. If I don't know the answer to something, I will research it until I do, which is a useful quality except that eventually everyone around you figures this out too.

At work, there was always something. A patient was mad, the doctor was mad, the lab called with a problem, something needed to be fixed, somebody needed to make a decision and it was always on me.

Even the stupid label maker.

We had this label maker at the office that was an absolute beast to change, and everyone hated it. I had it dialed, so whenever the labels ran out, someone would come find me. It would take me five minutes, but that's not really the point. The point is that after enough years of being the person who knows how to do things, people expect it of you ALL the time.

Kirsten will know, and usually I did.

Then I'd come home and hear, "What should we have for dinner?" and want to scream, I DON'T CARE. Not because I'm angry about dinner. I just don't want to make one more decision. Please, somebody else decide what we're eating. The overwhelm is real.

There are bills to pay and things to organize and someone can't find the instruction manual and someone needs to know how something works or where something is or what we should do about whatever thing has come up now. And to be fair to my husband, he's perfectly capable of taking care of plenty of things himself. This isn't about him. It's about the role I've created for myself everywhere I go.

My friends do it too, although in a different way. People ask my opinion. Which county comissioner should I vote for? You've researched all the ballot issues, what do you think about this one? Which peptide helps with sleep? Should I get this car insurance? Who should I see for HRT? What do you think about this lab? What's the best gluten-free bread?

That last one I probably do have some pretty strong opinions about.

I actually love that people trust me enough to ask. I don't take that lightly. If I tell someone something, I want to know that I've done my homework and that what I'm saying is true to the best of my knowledge. I care a lot about being someone people can trust, probably more than I realized until lately.

I've learned that one of my biggest triggers is having my integrity questioned, and I learned that one pretty recently. Someone at work accused me of crossing a line I hadn’t crossed. I absolutely had not. But in that moment, they believed I had knowingly disregarded something important, and I was shocked by how intensely I reacted to that. I was furious. Not because someone disagreed with a decision I'd made or didn't like how I'd handled something. I can deal with that. It was the idea that someone thought I was capable of knowingly doing something dishonest or unethical that completely lit me up.

Once I calmed down, I started thinking about why that hit me quite as hard as it did, and I kept coming back to my dad.

Integrity was huge for him. He did the right thing because it was the right thing to do. He looked out for people, he helped people, he was dependable and trustworthy and took responsibility seriously, and I think I absorbed a lot more of that than I ever realized.

Those are qualities I love about myself. I don't want to change them. But lately I've started wondering if I've taken the whole thing a little too damn far. Because being capable can actually take away some of your freedom.

If everyone knows you can handle something, you become the person who handles it. And then you handle the next thing and the next thing, until people don't really have to think that hard about what the best course of action is because you'll figure it out. Even worse, you start doing it before anyone asks. You anticipate what needs to happen, take care of it, solve the problem and move on to the next one because that's just what you do.

Then one day you look around and wonder why you're responsible for everything and feeling resentful about it.

Well...because you kind of made yourself responsible for everything. Go figure.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what I actually want my life to feel like, not what I want it to look like, and I keep coming back to freedom. My version isn't particularly extravagant.

I want to wake up with the sun. No alarm just the sun on my face lulling me out of sleep naturally. I want to move my body in the morning, drink water, make delicious coffee, eat good food and have time to connect with the man I love before we're both off doing whatever the day requires of us. I want to cook whole foods without feeling like dinner is another task I have to cram into the end of an already overfilled day.

I want to travel more. I want to write. I want to build and create things. I want to keep helping people navigate their health because I genuinely love that work. I love sitting with someone who is overwhelmed by all the information they've been given and helping them sort through it. I love connecting dots, finding resources, translating, asking questions and making something that felt impossible suddenly feel manageable.

I don't want to stop being useful or stop being of service to people. I just don't want to feel like I'm on call for everyone else's life.

And I want some days with absolutely no plan. I want to wake up and see how I feel. We could go for a hike, get in the car and explore somewhere new, or I could read all day and decide at four o'clock that I want to cook something that takes hours for absolutely no reason. I could also do nothing remotely productive and, this is the important part, not spend the afternoon feeling guilty about it.

Which is funny, because this blog is a perfect example.

It's Saturday morning and I hadn't written it yet.

I hadn't even figured out what I wanted to write about, and there was this little voice in my head telling me that I needed to get my blog done because I HAVE to post it.

And then I thought, wait. Who exactly is making me do that?

Freaking nobody.

There is no boss. There is no editor waiting for it. There is no contract saying I have to publish a blog every Saturday. I decided I wanted to write a weekly blog because I enjoy writing and I have things I want to say, and somehow I managed to take this completely voluntary thing that I love and create a deadline for it so I could feel behind.

How very Kirsten-esque.

And think that's what I've been getting wrong about freedom all along.

I've been thinking about all of the things outside of me that make me feel less free: work, responsibilities, people needing me, schedules, obligations, and those things are real. There have been years of my life when I truly did have too much responsibility and too many people depending on me.

But I'm also really good at creating obligations where none exist.

I tell myself I have to do things that I absolutely do not have to do. I decide something should happen a certain way and then treat that decision like it’s written in stone. I anticipate what other people need before they even ask, take care of it and then occasionally resent the fact that I'm the one taking care of everything.

That's uncomfortable to admit, but it's also kind of freeing in itself.

Because if I'm the one making some of these rules, I'm allowed to change them.

I’ve learned I don't need to stop being the capable person. I don't think I could if I tried, and honestly, I don't want to. I like that people trust me. I like being resourceful. I like knowing that when something goes bat-shit sideways, I can usually figure out what to do next.

I just don't need to figure out everything for everyone. And maybe someone else can change the fucking label maker.

What if freedom isn't this giant destination where someday I'll finally have enough money and enough time and few enough obligations that nobody needs anything from me and I can wake up every morning and do exactly what I want.

I'm not even sure I'd like that life.

I am wondering if it's much more basic than that. What if it's paying attention to all of the things I tell myself I have to do and asking whether I actually do. It's leaving a little room in my day for something I didn't plan, or letting someone else figure something out even when I know I could do it faster. It's the realization that being dependable doesn't mean being endlessly available, and being a good person doesn't mean taking responsibility for everything happening around me.

I can still be the person my family and friends can count on and I can still help people. I can still research things to death and have unnecessarily strong opinions about gluten-free bread.

I just want to leave a little more room for my own life.

Because what if freedom is realizing that some of the limits you feel aren't actually limits at all. You put them there, which also means you're the one who gets to take them away.

That's where I'm at now. Limits are getting chucked out the sunroof as I cruise down the open road with the radio blaring, the wind in my hair and absolutely nowhere I need to be.

Metaphorically, of course, but it's glorious nonetheless.