What does freedom have to do with it?

Last night I wrote to D that I won't be taking the business trip we had planned to use for our next meeting. I added that I had not figured out a plan what to do next.

She wrote back to me as follows:

Dearest Hosea,

I had already figured it out.

Really...it's pretty much up to you to decide to see me. This is a big country and there are many options. It means taking a number of steps you are reluctant to take, and I can't help you take them. I can take the same steps, but you already know that I am willing to schedule the time and pay my share of the bill, which now would include a hotel and car. I can hope you will take the risk, but I'm frankly not sure you will. Franzen's bleak view of freedom (his characters all have affairs that end unhappily) may be yours as well. The narrator says at one point, "the personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality as prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage." I understand that freedom can be a curse rather than a blessing, and I'm asking not that you see me to be free from all of your commitments to Wife and the boys, but that you might view seeing me as freedom for something more worthwhile and significant. Otherwise, you are left to mend your relationship with Wife to some degree and forge a fragile treaty with your unhappiness, unable to see anything more promising to give your life meaning.That's a wilderness, Hosea. I understand that blank freedom and irresponsibility breaks a certain emptiness, but I also believe that Franzen's view of freedom in a post-religious age is not the only option; that we might be able to glimpse another, more expansive way to live.

I see this possibility clearly in the recent letter and phone call received from my daughter [Brittany] in Istanbul. By far the most rewarding parts of the trip have been the time spent in Bulgaria and Romania; she sees a society, fast disappearing, that is truly pre-modern in many ways. Brittany is so fascinated and impressed that she plans to return to both countries as early as this summer to visit the mountains and valleys that will be gone forever once highways and modern 'conveniences' destroy so much of the old forests and way of life. Bulgaria only has seven million people-only seven million-- spread thinly over a huge territory. Brittany says that she traveled, often on foot or with others as a rider, through miles and miles of pristine wilderness totally untouched by human civilization. She says she has never seen anything as beautiful; I know I haven't and I'd so like to do so. Her adventures sound remarkable; a bit scary, but she and her boyfriend seem to be good traveling companions. Brittany doesn't mind being lost and her boyfriend seems to believe that everything will work out without spending money to be rescued from inconvenience or frustration. I understand from my husband that they both took out 400 dollars a few weeks ago and they haven't gone through it yet. They pay for nothing except food purchased at local markets; everything else is offered to them by others. I'm not suggesting that you and I meet somewhere without any bed and board arrangements, but I certainly think we might explore some area of our country without spending a fortune. What appeals to you?

This is a turning point, dearest one. I have to hold on to the passion I hear in your voice and experience in your arms. I can't believe that you will just walk away, back into gray reality. Am I right? Only time will tell, but we need to see each other. You have not called, I have not written, and this won't do. I vote that you grab a metaphorical motorcycle, and ride on muddy roads four or five hours to remind yourself of why you might want to travel outside your narrow, if gilded, community. There is so much more, so very much more...

All my love,
D

I read this, and I am left not knowing which way is up. Freedom? I certainly wasn't thinking of the whole thing in terms of freedom. Honestly I'm not sure I know what to do with freedom. I have sometimes said, a little cynically, that freedom may be overrated. The people I have known over the years with the most free time on their hands and the fewest obligations don't often look to be the happiest.

Then when I hear myself saying this, I blanch to realize how much I sound like Wife, fleeing into the tyranny of obligation because anything else is so scary. Have I been doing the same thing? Yeah.

I wish I hadn't just realized that. It puts a cloud on my whole day. Shit.