Freedom!

Good Morning everyone,

I am writing to you this morning from my new blog spot, my lazy boy in the living room of home as yesterday evening I was discharged from the hospital and finally got to go home. All in all I spent 40 days straight in the hospital. Kind of like my own personal journey of lent I guess :) Today's topic isn't going to be about the journey though but I am going to focus more on the end. I will save the journey for another day.

Freedom....before when I heard the word, the first thing that popped into my mind was the scream popularized by Mel Gibson in Braveheart. This epic feeling that can only be expressed with yelling at the top of your lungs. The unfortunate thing is the scene romantizes the expression and the idea of freedom. It makes it such an epic feeling that it seems almost unattainable for most of us to ever feel such satisfaction and freedom.

This journey has brought a whole new meaning to the term freedom for me. It made me realize that freedom comes in steps not in one epic moment. At the hospital, they don't just one day release you but do it through baby steps. The first thing they do is unhook you from the IV pumping machine. This machine many of you have seen in my pictures, but basically it pump on wheels that goes everywhere with you. And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere!; the bathroom, the shower, it sleeps beside you, it eats beside you, literally anywhere you go it goes. When they are getting ready to discharge you they unhook the machine so that you can learn to maintain your own fluid balances. This was actually my first experience of freedom. It felt so liberating to be able to walk around the halls and swing both arms, get up in the night to go to the washroom and not have to unplug a machine. As I reflected it was amazing to me that such a little thing could bring so much joy and relief.

Now leaving the hospital brought the feeling of painting my face blue and yelling freedom as I walked out the door. But truthfully it was more of a short lived feeling, and fairly anticlimatic. The true feeling of freedom is sitting on my couch with my little kitty Dora sleeping beside as I write to you. Amy still asleep in the bedroom, not on a couch. Knowing that if I want to eat breakfast I am going to have to get up and go cook it. Having to count out all my different meds and make sure that I stick to the schedule. And finally watching the sunrise on the water. I wrote in previous blogs that I enjoyed writing to you with the view of the sunrise in the morning, but my new view is truly breathtaking and hopefully even more inspiring so I can keep you all interested :)

If you can learn anything from my journey so far it is look for the little freedoms in your life. It is not an emotion and feeling that can only be found by taking on the English Army to free a country but a combination of releasing the tiny shackles in your life that are holding you back. Take a look for the small things in your life that are stopping you from feeling truly happy and free slowly start breaking them. The beauty is as you break them, each one will have a different and unique feeling and it will inspire you to keep going. Slowly it will snowball and you too will get your Freedom! moment too.

Have a great day and I pray each of you will find your first new Sunset of freedom that inspires you too!

Aaron

For anyone interested I will post pictures of my new blogging sunset view on the facebook group later today. Just click here to access : Facebook | Aaron Offord’s Marathon against Leukemia