People say I’ve changed this past year.
They say I look lighter… happier… me again.
I didn’t understand what they meant at first — because when you’ve lived inside control for decades, freedom doesn’t feel like freedom.
It feels like confusion.
It feels like guilt.
It feels like you’re doing something wrong.

But this year, everything shifted.

I shop now without panic in my chest.
No more calculating every penny, wondering if I “deserve” it, if it will start an argument, if buying something with my own money will get me questioned, interrogated, shamed.
I can pick up something I love — and simply buy it.
Imagine that.

I laugh freely now.
Not quietly, cautiously, waiting for humiliation to follow.
I laugh all day at silly things, and no one rolls their eyes, puts me down, or tells me to stop.

When I go out for a meal, I choose anything I want.
I order the wine I want without hearing, “Too expensive. You can’t afford that.”
(Interesting how I couldn’t afford it even though I was the one who worked, earned, and kept the whole house running.)

I go out with my friends — the ones who were constantly criticised, questioned, or dismissed as “not real friends.”
I drink what I want, stay out as long as I want, and no one warns me to “be careful” as if I were a child incapable of making decisions.

I can book a holiday when I want.
To the country I want.
At the time that suits me.
No guilt. No begging. No justifying. No fear.

I can spend money on my family without hiding receipts or bracing myself for a lecture.
My money. My work. My life.

It’s unbelievable how many restrictions I lived under, especially around money — money I earned — and how I was conditioned to believe that this was normal.
Looking back now, it wasn’t normal at all.
It was control.
It was conditioning.
It was the slow erosion of my freedom disguised as “responsibility” and “what’s best.”

But not anymore.

My friends and family cheer me on now.
They smile when I make choices for myself.
They celebrate when I buy something just because I want it.
They remind me — gently, lovingly — that these are basic human rights I should have always had.

It took decades to see it.
It took courage to leave it.
It took a full year to understand what freedom truly feels like.

But now that I know?

Never, ever again.