Over the years, I have celebrated many Independence Days…independence from a controlling ex-husband, independence from my parents, or simply independence from bad situations in life that I found myself in. Throughout all these life experiences, I have learned a lot of lessons that people along my life course had tried to teach me…the easy way. Funny thing is…all I ever heard was “Blah blah blah blah blah.” In reality, what people were trying to teach me was that doing for oneself, although it is much harder, was actually much better. I’ve often wondered if maybe women struggle more with the concept of independence because traditionally, there is almost always someone ready to step in to help financially…whether they want to marry you, have sex with you, or just hang out with you so they aren’t alone…whatever. I began to realize that my own lazy and selfish ways were battling self-sufficiency at every turn. However, I never realized that until I began to understand that the price I was paying wasn’t worth it. I finally came to the conclusion that I had to accept the reality that you really can’t have it both ways. When, in fact, you mooch off another, it’s pretty hard to bitch and moan about your circumstances. In hindsight, I realize that my own laziness and greed, I suppose, made me co-sign a lot of people’s BS. I finally learned acceptance from living independently and seeing the standards that I had held my parents to have been utterly ridiculous. Some days…you just get through.

After spending over a decade in an abusive relationship, I learned not only about physical, sexual, and emotional abuse…I learned something new…a term called financial abuse. What this term means is this…when one person with the income controls everything, the dependent one is locked into a situation…most often this person has children like me. The dependent one begins to believe that because they do not have any money, they cannot leave because if they do…they will face homelessness and potentially lose the children to the controlling one with the income. If there’s anything at all that I’ve learned in my life, it’s that you can only feel comfortable about defining your boundaries and laying down your law when you have your own financial means. Every single workday…without fail…I spend a lot of time bitching and moaning about my job. However, I do this with a smile on my face. The reason why is because that job and the ability I have to work buys me a whole lot more than a roof over my head, a car to drive, or groceries to feed my family. That job buys me my life. It buys me myself. It buys my decisions. And it buys me my boundaries on toxic people.

Learning to be independent is a long journey, but eventually you realize that you’ve tried every other way imaginable and in the end, you’re left with yourself. And not only that, when you become self-sufficient, approximately 95% of your aggravations go right out the window. And for the record, I am not talking about being ALONE. I’m talking about when you know that you can stand alone. It’s then when your relationships become about love and no longer about power or contests. You realize that you are with people because you want to be, not because you HAVE to be. Then and only then can you begin to appreciate what other people bring to the table. It gives you an identity. It gives you self.

Through this self-actualization process, I’ve learned that sometimes I just have to say, “This BS is going to stop RIGHT NOW!” Independence, freedom from tyranny, is a beautiful thing. Thank you, Founding Fathers, for saying, “Oh HELL naw!! Screw THIS shit!” It set an excellent example for me.