The function of freedom is to free someone else.
“You have a bird?,” inquired the woman standing behind me at checkout. I was holding a big birdcage so my answer could have gone a few different ways.
“No, I don’t,” I winked. “It’s a reminder that my bird is free!”
She grinned.
This Thanksgiving, I celebrate our freedom to choose by sharing the true story of a woman who liberated herself in fine feathery style. Kitty Cavalier reveals:
I wasn’t always the confident life of the party. For most of my life, I was suicidally depressed with a severe eating disorder. My world revolved around my body, my weight and what diet I was on or not. I wore long sleeves and long pants even in the summertime. I made up crazy excuses so friends wouldn’t take me to the beach. Getting undressed became traumatic even for the simple routine of taking a shower in the privacy of my own home.
Underneath all this shame was a deep seated belief that if only I were pretty enough, thin enough, charismatic enough, successful enough, fill-in-the-blank enough, my life would be better. My body became the battleground of my grief, shame, fear, anxieties and I hated it for not cooperating with my wishes. Then one evening, I went to see a burlesque show…
Click here for more on Kitty’s story and her School of Charm and Cheek.
Which freedom will you celebrate this Thanksgiving?
© Sharon Birke
Photography for the Goddess in Every Wife & Mother
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