The feeling of absolute freedom
- Irena Jurjević
- 16. stu 2025.
- 2 min čitanja
Updated: 17. stu 2025.
It's night, one hour after midnight. I'm walking along the Malecon in Vedado, a newer neighborhood in Havana. I'm coming back from a salsa party. I'm alone. I'm starting to become aware of this unfamiliarity and vastness around me. I look to my left, and the blue, dark ocean spreads out in front of me. To my right, huge buildings and very tall skyscrapers rise, there are none like them here. Massive, foreign, different. Gray neon shines from tall, unfinished buildings, half-built sites.
I keep walking. I still have an hour to go home. I don't feel like walking that much, my legs are tired from dancing. I wish my friend was here now. But she isn't. When I'm having a hard time, I want someone, something; to hand over my weight to them to carry it for me. I don't feel like... I don't want to! My soul is whimpering like a little child.
I walk because I have no choice. I am alone in this unknown vastness.
Where am I?
Somewhere very far away, across this ocean, is Croatia. Something familiar to me. I'm starting to realize that no one is waiting for me there either. I have no one waiting for me with impatience anymore. I'm alone. Completely alone, immersed in this crazy Matrix.
Perhaps because of the fear of this realization, perhaps not, I begin to feel myself expanding, across the Vedad, across the ocean. My Self, the eternal and unchanging inner Self, is expanding throughout the Universe. All the people, all the hooks I have held onto all my life are just an illusion.
My inner Self has always been completely alone, yet connected and merged with all that exists. A frightening and calming realization at the same time. I walk in space, completely free... Free from the so-familiar clinging to the idea that someone else will save me, protect me. I don't need protection, I have myself. The boundless, timeless, ever-known self.
And I don't have to do anything. I don't have to do anything to save myself... From what? I don't know from what either. I can just exist, breathe, be. Walk and observe.
Home is where I am.
