The Sunday kick-off post is back!

yeah write #153 winner: Diana of A Southward Tide

A while back, you asked us to include the most recent winner’s post in its entirety as part of the Sunday kickoff. This week’s winner is Diana of A Southward Tide, whose deeply personal revelation about the effect freedom has on the self apparently touched something in many of you.

Freedom is Bought With

I was twenty-three years old when I broke up with a long term boyfriend in Cairns, Australia. Six years together, I felt dead, suffocated, spit up and rehashed. On the great Australian expanse, I was walking in a cage. I thought it was him.

After the cataclysmic breakup, I travelled south, alone and against the advice of my family. Previously vegan, I started smoking cigarettes and living off ice cream and beer. I lost weight. I tanned brown. Somewhere along the Gold Coast, I hitched a ride out of some crappy backpacker town. It was a long road to wherever we were going next, maybe a day’s drive. The driver’s name was Pip. He had red hair and was kind. I cannot remember the others but the station wagon was full. Pip drove through a straggled eucalyptus landscape, a pale orange earth, snakes sunning on the strip. Sometime after dark, we pulled into a rest stop. It was dangerous to drive through the bush at night, animals on the road, kangaroos smashing fenders, cars in ditches, no ambulances for miles and miles. Pip fixed up a hammock above the picnic bench. Underneath, I rolled out my sleeping bag, a feeling of giddiness in my heart.

No one knew where I was. Not my family, not my friends. I was thousands of miles from the last memory of me and for the first time in my entire life, all the expectations, all the stories and lies disappeared. I was relieved of myself. Under the southern hemisphere sky ablaze with stars, a feeling of total freedom crystallized and with it, concurrent, at the exact same moment, I suffered the loneliest feeling of my life.

The following morning Pip took me aside and asked, ”Are you okay?”

“Why?”

“You have barely spoken since we left town. But last night, you were so happy sleeping on the bench. You even smiled.”

“I just broke up with my boyfriend of six years,” I told the half truth and he seemed satisfied. Truth was, it was not the boyfriend that was breaking my heart. It was life with its gaping mouth and awful truths: freedom is bought with self. The freedom we crave is the freedom of little deaths. We pay with pieces of ourselves – the triumphs and failures, the dreams and delusions, even our loved ones, even our names. And without me, what else is there? Freedom is a feeling best left for the gods.

Introducing the gargleblaster!

Looking for something fast and furious? Does “having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon, wrapped ’round a large gold brick” sound like your kind of party? Well, have we got a challenge for you!

The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster was named “Best Drink in Existence” by the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s also yeah write’s newest writing challenge. Every Monday we’ll provide you with a question, which you must answer in exactly 42 words. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry – we love ’em all. Just stick to the word limit and you’ll be good.

Don’t be fooled – writing micro fiction can be much harder than writing longer pieces. Just because the posts are short doesn’t mean we want you to sacrifice quality. Whether your piece is 42 words, 402, or 4002, a good writer makes every word count. Like always, we’re looking for your best work.

The first gargleblaster challenge grid will open on Monday, March 31. We’ll announce it in the Sunday kick-off post and on Facebook and Twitter, so make sure to join us there! In the meantime, head over to the gargleblaster FAQ for all the details.

Get your badges!

The badge for yeah write #154 is over in the sidebar. Copy the code from the box beneath the badge, paste it into the text or HTML view of your post draft window, then the badge should appear in your post once published. The yeah write #154 weekly writing challenge opens on Tuesday for personal essays and traditional blog anecdotes. The speakeasy’s fiction slam and poetry jam opens Tuesday for prompted entries. Hop on over there to pick up your badge.

New to yeah write?

Welcome! This is a special kind of place, and we hope you will dive right in. If this is one of your first visits to yeah write, please read the page describing how yeah write works. If you’re having trouble figuring it all out, feel free to email us, and we’ll help you get started.