At Last

Michael and Hope Steadman: Bend but never break.

There’s a scene in the series finale of “thirtysomething,” one of my touchstone TV shows growing up, with tortured yuppie family man Michael Steadman, upon quitting his stressful corporate job, flinging the windows of his unfinished breakfast nook wide open to let the air in and an evening breeze brush up against his relieved face. It spells a burden being lifted from his shoulders and most of all freedom.

Liberation is a strange yet wonderful thing, especially when feeling chained by circumstances that can no longer be sustained. It eluded me until now with some unexpected yet welcomed time off. I was thinking “transactionally” for so long, and now I’m returning to being human again. Living in this society, I try to balance both. But my true nature wins out. To paraphrase a biblical verse, what good is a person who gains the world but loses her soul?