Freedom is a word I used to picture with wings. Not even metaphorical ones – just literal white-feathered wings, outstretched in mid-air, far above the noise.
Untouchable. Free.
I used to believe it was about escape – that one day I’d wake up and be far from everything that caged me. But the older I get, the more I realise that freedom isn’t a flight away. It’s built quietly, in small decisions, and in the courage to stay.
When I was a kid, freedom was the ability to choose which cartoon to watch after school. The right to say, I don’t want to wear that or let me do it my way. It was measured in snacks, bedtime stories, and how many minutes I could steal before the lights had to be turned off. Back then, I didn’t know I was already negotiating with freedom. I just thought I was stubborn.
As a teenager, it changed shape. It became louder, more desperate. I started craving control – over my body, my identity, the image I projected to the world.
I wanted to be able to walk into a room and not feel like I had to shrink myself to fit. I wanted to make decisions – real ones. Not just what do I want to wear today? But who do I want to be, and will anyone let me?
There were rules, spoken and unspoken. Cultural ones, family ones. The kind of rules that live under your skin. I learnt how to break some of them quietly, and follow others so perfectly it almost hurt.
Now, standing on this strange edge between not a child anymore and still figuring it all out, freedom feels even more layered. I see how easily it slips away under the weight of expectations.
People say adulthood comes with freedom – the freedom to work, to live, to travel, to choose your path. But nobody talks about the price. The bills, the anxiety, the invisible leash tied to survival.
Sometimes, freedom looks like choosing your career. Other times, it looks like staying in a job you hate because the rent won’t wait for your dreams to catch up.
When I think about students – people my age, peers – I see how tightly we’re all holding onto our tiny bits of choice. It’s about picking a major that won’t disappoint our parents too much. Trying to chase a passion while also wondering if it’ll pay the bills.
We want to choose what we study, how we learn, how we express ourselves – but there are so many eyes watching.
Freedom here means navigating between what’s allowed and what’s meaningful. It’s walking a tightrope, barefoot, with a smile that says I’m fine even when the wind is cruel.
And maybe that’s what makes me think of freedom the most – the act of performing.
Performing normalcy. Performing certainty. Performing joy when I’m overwhelmed, or competence when I feel like a child in a grown-up costume.
The freedom I crave isn’t a grand escape. It’s the space to stop performing. To exist as I am – sensitive, strange, shifting – and know that it’s enough.
There are other freedoms I want, too. The freedom to love without apology. The freedom to be loud and wrong and soft and complicated – and not feel like I owe anyone an explanation. The freedom to rest. To have enough. To not be in survival mode all the time.
To choose who I become based on what makes me feel whole – not what makes me look successful. And yes, I want the freedom to travel – God, do I want that. I want to stand in unfamiliar cities and feel the breath of something new.
Not just tourist freedom, but the deep kind – where I can go anywhere without fear, without explaining why I’m there, without the weight of money or visas or expectations. I want the kind of freedom that doesn’t feel like running away, but returning to myself.
More than anything, though – more than politics, more than passports, more than public pressure – I want freedom from the version of me that still thinks I need to earn it. I want the freedom to be me. Fully. Unfiltered. Without apology. Without fear.
And if I ever do grow wings – whether metaphorical or real – I want them to be something I chose. Not something I ran to, but something I grew into. On my own terms. At my own pace.
That, to me, is freedom.
To give the younger generation an avenue to express themselves, Twentytwo13 has a dedicated space called Young Voices. If you are a young writer (aged 17 and below) and would like your article published on our news website, send your contribution to editor@twentytwo13.my.
