Nothing would bother me more than after months of taking the same route to work or school or even the market that one day I wanted to change things up and was informed, "Sorry, that is not allowed."

Something as simple as making choice as to how I would get from point A to point B is denied. I cannot even begin to imagine a directive from another telling me what I can or cannot do, as long as it is not harmful to myself or others.

I can't even imagine driving somewhere and being pulled over by a police officer and because I get into an argument he decides to confiscate my possessions including my car and says he suspected everything I had was drug related and I can't get these things back. The authorities would own them through "search and seizure." How preposterous that even sounds. Must be fiction.

My freedom to be who I am, how I think, who I like or dislike, where I go, and what I do are my freedoms, and as long as they are not intentionally hurting another, they are the most valuable possessions I/we have. 

I wanted to make my own choices

To be trusted to decide

What is wrong and what is right

But I'm too young.

I'm old enough to decide my future;

What I'll do for the rest of my life-

But not old enough to choose

How I spend my free time

I don't listen to the right music

I don't wear the right clothes

I can be whoever I want

As long as it's who they choose

Whatever I do

They have to approve

I'm still just a child

There's so much I don't know

But I never will

If I'm not allowed to grow

"I want to be a writer." 

Everyone said I couldn't do it. I couldn't write a book that people would enjoy. My father thought I was crazy, saying I would change my mind eventually and go into something more relatable, like medicine or physics. My mother's only words were 'good for you' before she went back into the stance where my grades are most important. My sister scoffed at me. My best friend told me my writing wasn't good enough. 

What I wanted to do was stripped away from me faster than anything else. No one believed me, or let me do what I wanted to do. That's freedom to me. 

But still, they wouldn't believe me. No matter what I do, I'm stuck in this desolate place where I can't get out anytime soon. No one believes me. No one cares to say otherwise or to push me forwards. 

But that's okay. I don't need them to help me with my goal. They think I can't do it, just watch. I'll prove them wrong. 

I sat in the back of the classroom and tried to concentrate on the words coming out of the substitute teacher's mouth. He needed to regain control of the room. It was like something out of a movie about bad kids in an urban classrooms. But instead of giving the kids marshal arts lessons or showing them how to make soup, like in a couple of films I'd seen about this very thing, he decided to scare them into silence.

"Do you know what a nuclear winter is?" he said.

Suddenly the room got quiet. Everyone knew that the Russians were trying to blow us up any day now.

"It's when radioactive dust covers the sky and the sun doesn't shine.  Everything will be dead in just a few months," he said. "Think about it. Your mama and your daddy, your brother and your sister and YOU dead. The earth itself will die."

A few girls started to whimper in the back.

A nervous boy in the front row mumbled, "The whole world would be blown to bits."

"That's not possible," I spoke up.

"The little lady in the back row wants to add something," the substitute teacher said.

I didn't want to tell the room that I was studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses. They were very unpopular. At 13 being popular was like breathing, everyone wanted it. But I knew I had to use my FREEDOM to speak. 

So, I said, "Psalm 104:5 tells us, 'He has founded the earth upon its established places; It will not be mad to totter to time indefinite or forever.'"

"What's that from? What are you a priest?" the substitute said."No, I'm studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses, and they have taught me to speak from scripture, and not rely on my own understanding or yours," I said.

I dreamed moderately

I wanted something achievable

Something simple

I wanted love

I wanted children

I didn't need money

Or power

I had no lofty ambition

I only wanted what I was promised

My body could give

A life inside me

An unbreakable bond

Unlike any other

Love and love in return

Unconditional, unshakable

I wanted to feel that

But more so

I wanted to give it

I don't love anything the way I love children

And I could have them

I was promised

Just wait

And it will happen

But my body

My body

My body is broken

So quickly

My dreams died so quickly

A week

I wasn't even ready for kids yet

But my body was preemptive

Cysts on both sides

Removed

Only slivers left

Of ovaries and dreams

i never wanted to be alive. i never have. death means freedom to me. i'm a coward, so i am the one denying myself the freedom, the end to this but i don't feel finished, you know? i want closure. i want to know if there's anything to life more than this, more than misery, bitterness and fleeting moments when i feel alive. 

My mansion is waiting.

My yacht dreams of blue waters.

My luxury SUV will have its day in the sun.

My wardrobe is designed and waiting to enhance my beauty and be my ultimate expression.

My land is the womb with seeds of beautiful plants and trees.

It has flush vegetation awaiting germination.

The animals, big and small, will be born to balance a delightful ecosystem.

A world size gallery of art and music is calling me to participate in its production.

There are people around the world who want to be my friend, and I am planning to go see them.

The world has so many beautiful sites that want to share their enchanting presence with me. My private jet awaits the many runways.

My family lives in peace and joy as they excitedly work toward their dreams.

The stories, dreams, and goals of my soulmate and I mesh together in perfect harmony.

Together my family's hearts are filled by blessing others with products and services that bring customers more value to their lives than the amount of money they paid for them.

As I watch my dream become reality, I realize why it stayed hidden for so long.

I was born and raised in an environment of want and need. I was constantly exposed to negative energies, thoughts and drama.

For part of my life this was the norm, and my comfort zone. I spent an unmeasurable amount of time and energy trying to please and impress the nay-sayers around me.

Once it finally dawned on me that it was not going to happen, I began to search for the light at the end of the tunnel.

I began to believe in a better life. Opportunities began to arise. I took them, one by one. I began to study, learn and get help from great mentors. I was learning how to change my mindset on life.

When I began seeing life differently, I began to place things in my life that I wanted, not what others wanted for me. 

I claimed freedom by being my own creator of my own story.

For more than thirty years, as a free woman, I strove to help make the voices of under-served people heard. I spoke up about child abuse when people thought it was “rare”. I spoke out for victims’ rights. I spent twenty years with teams of researchers and practitioners trying to expand access to mental and physical healthcare for rural and under-served people. I used my freedom to live my life in the way I believed I should. I lived vigorously. I refused to be a bystander and not speak up. I know I made a difference in the lives of the people I encountered.

Nevertheless, the battle was so long and so dark it ate all of the freedom to act that I had. In 2012, I retired sick, old and diminished, having expended all of my power without having made “the big difference.” Victims still struggle. Children are not loved and nurtured as they should be. Rural women are still more likely to die early. Rural men are economically disadvantaged regardless of their age, race or background. Healthcare access in the U.S. is a national tragedy.

Somewhere in the debacle of the 2016 political process, We, as a nation, woke up to the fact that rural and under-served people of all color, gender, creed, age or nationality fare worse than their urban and suburban counterparts. We call “them” the “Forgotten America.” Our national forgetfulness was so powerful it transformed the word urbancentricity from a negative word meaning urban bias against non-urban things to a positive word meaning people loved the things their urban lives provided.

The transformation of urbancentricity to remembering our "forgotten people" makes me relieved that someone finally noticed and cross that and it took mean, explosive politics to illuminate the problem. If there is any hope for freedom hidden in the angry rhetoric of America these days, I am free to hope that others are as weary of it as I and that shared positive change will finally come. If it does, it will heal me, and my Country.