Color 8: The color of freedom isn't always red, white and blue.

It's been a few months since I write and it's certainly not because of lack of material. It's quite the opposite, so much has happened. In one sentence: I sold everything, I moved to another continent and in the process found out I was pregnant. To add some shadowing to my interesting picture, the undertones of all of it are even more life-changing. I realized how much I really love my husband, what an amazing man he is. I realized that material things really don't matter, and I feel it in my gut. I realized what it means to be a christian. And I reaffirmed what I've always felt, I really don't know anything. There are so many variables that define who we are and what we believe. We hold on to the things that validate what we want to believe and that's how most of us hold on to truths. But what if we open our eyes to see beyond that and take a leap? What if we allowed ourselves to be malleable to the point where every experience was a new opportunity to find new truths? It would be scary. It is really scary. To know that what you know and what you believe to be true can become a lie in seconds. That's what the past year has been for me. But the funny thing is uncertainty has actually given me the greatest sense of peace I've ever felt. Freedom is finding peace in knowing that I can't control anything but I can find joy in everything if I so choose.

Leaving my home, America, was not an easy decision. It was something that had to come from deep within me. My husband had the first inspiration to move about a year and half ago. We had visited Europe a few times and realized we spent 50 weeks of our year looking forward to and planning two. It's like the backpack analogy from "Up in the Air," if you were to put everything you own, from the smallest things to your house, your car, how much does that weigh you down and disable you to the point of being unable to move? We fill our lives with things and are confident that these are the things that will make us happy. But what of experiences? What of living life, really living it? Do you REALLY need a house with a white picket fence and a minivan in the driveway to make your 2.5 children happy, to make yourself happy? Is that the formula? Is that really freedom? Come to find out for me, it wasn't. I had the house on the lake, a dog, new cars, a canoe and a chopper all before the age of 30. I had the American Dream on steroids. But as a person, was this contributing to my betterment, was it really making me whole or free? The reality was this, I had a mortgage, a car payment, a job where I compromised my beliefs -- a superficial life. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed all of it. I bought into the hype, the social cues that said this was happiness. And in many ways I was happy even beyond the social brain wash. But all those things were crutches. I needed to find true happiness beyond things. I needed to remove myself from the consumerist, materialist and superficial mentality that things shape our lives.

The American Dream defines freedom as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When did that translate into having a home, a dog, two cars and 2.5 children? So life, what is really living life? Giving 25 to 30 years of work for someone else's pocket to get fat, so you can then maybe payoff that mortgage and wait 'till your wrinkly to actually see the world and enjoy your spouse? So you work, you procreate, you work some more and then you die? Being productive and filled with crap -- Is that living, is that success? It certainly isn't liberty. Your tied down by responsibilities; the more stuff you have, the more you have to worry about. Oh, and then there's good 'ol pursuit -- just pursuit, not attainment. It's the chase, running after it like that bunny on the dog track. Forgive me, but I think true freedom comes from the attainment of happiness. But what makes us happy, I mean REALLY happy? Can it really come from outside things or does it just come down to what we do with what we are given? My brother said to me once: "Rich is not the person who has the most but the one that makes the most of what he's given." He was referring to my pre-furnished studio apartment in Italy which is the size of my old bedroom in Florida. I have a speck of what I had before, but I am the richest I have ever been. I am more free because I have less. In today's FB post Paulo Cohelo said this: "Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose my commitments." Well damn it, then I am more free than ever. I have less than ever but I get to pick my path, to pursue my passions, to enjoy my family, my pregnancy. I am less bound to unnecessary responsibilities and more open to what's next. I finally live within my means, I don't owe anyone anything.

I am grateful and proud to be American, it gave me opportunities I could've only dreamed of if I would've stayed in Colombia. I hope I am not misunderstood. I just have new truths and I am grateful for what I have had and lived. If it wasn't for my ability to achieve the American Dream I couldn't sit here now writing about something beyond that. I am more American than anything else but I needed to leave America and the way of life there to experience true freedom. A blue passport gave me the opportunity but it was beyond those stars and stripes that I found true freedom.