{"id":188,"date":"2008-07-03T00:36:33","date_gmt":"2008-07-03T04:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washwords.wordpress.com\/2008\/07\/03\/independence-day\/"},"modified":"2008-07-03T00:36:33","modified_gmt":"2008-07-03T04:36:33","slug":"independence-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/2008\/independence-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Independence is the easy part"},"content":{"rendered":"
In college, contemplating and confronting so many things at one – love, feminism, liberty, life — I began my wonderings about independence.<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>I wrote poetry in bluegreen notebooks:<\/div>\n
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“ <\/em><\/strong>Dependent, from Latin, <\/em><\/div>\n
meaning: to hang from<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/em><\/div>\n
So tonight I am wondering: <\/em><\/div>\n
Do I hang from you? “<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Hanging from was not a good thing, I concluded then. I would not hang from, not from him or anyone.<\/p><\/div>\n

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So I didn’t. Didn’t say “I love you.” Didn’t love fully. And didn’t hang from.<\/p><\/div>\n

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I thought it would protect me. From hurt, from risk, from giving too much, losing myself, blending into another.\u00a0 But the walls I built were sheer and cool and blew over in the wind. They were poor fortresses.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Thank God.<\/p><\/div>\n

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In came the stabs and embraces and hurts and loves of the people around me, whether I wanted them or not, whether I depended or not.<\/p><\/div>\n

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I am still careful with loving, with depending. I am an independent woman, with a good job, real estate , a life, a world. To me, that’s the easy part.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Being a “dependent woman” of sorts – depending on and being depended on – has been harder to learn. And it’s been 4th-of-July-fireworks explosively fufilling – a kind of love that grows and widens and stuns and satiates. I am still learning to hang from, to trust I won’t blow over or become an unnecessary appendage. Sometimes I do fall.\u00a0 And sometimes, if I let them, someone or someones catches me.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photo credit: DC Fireworks<\/a>,<\/span> by Grundlepuck via Flickr<\/a>. <\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In college, contemplating and confronting so many things at one – love, feminism, liberty, life — I began my wonderings about independence. I wrote poetry in bluegreen notebooks: “ Dependent, from Latin, meaning: to hang from So tonight I am wondering: Do I hang from you? “ Hanging from was not a good thing, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[669,49,13,699,50,25,1246,755,46],"class_list":["post-188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-dependence","tag-feminism","tag-friend","tag-independence","tag-love","tag-mental-health","tag-poetry","tag-trust","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions\/189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}