Going to a fair in the evening of the feast is very common where I grew up; the stalls are placed right next to the church. Everything is colorful: the sweets, the rides, and the giant wheel. It's been at least ten years since I last attended a fair. It is one of the main parts of my childhood.

The skill that got my attention

One evening, it was seven, and I could see the moon and the clouds, which were only visible because of the moonlight. That was the moment I saw this vendor selling red balloons filled with helium. The tank of helium was on a stand that kept it upright. He would fill the balloon with helium, tie the balloon with one hand, and hold the string with the other. With skill, he tied a balloon to the string, and he followed a rhythm. I was so fascinated by the accuracy of filling just the right amount of helium and following each step with such meticulous precision.

My thoughts when I saw a balloon vendor filling a red balloon with helium

I see them flying with helium and imagine what it would feel like if I were that inflated red balloon, going high up.

Growing up, I always associated freedom with flying. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines freedom as “the condition or right of being able or allowed to do, say, think, etc., whatever you want to, without being controlled or limited.”

I always looked up if things got a little out of sorts. Gave some sort of relief and still does. Being just a kid and thinking I want to fly away from the world I lived in to the unknown, or maybe a familiar sky because I looked at the sky more than the ground I walked on every day.

My fascination with the color of the balloon was a representation of how each human is so bright in their own right, only to be held back by a string. The following thought is not just an observation of what holds the balloon back but also of the false sense of freedom we chase.

Then, I see this string holding it back from flying high, tied to the cylinder that gave it ‘almost freedom.'

The fear of failure, loss, and confrontation represents the thin string holding us back. It’s more than our perception. It’s our own judgment of our own capacity and what we see in the mirror and what others think of us. Never directly held back by others but indirectly. Then, we have the blame game, which has us pondering and pointing fingers in every possible direction. All of which we can’t control; we have only our actions.

Yes, we can’t control our own judgment of ourselves, especially if we dwell on our past. The human brain hates to be in the present; it always wants to think about the past or the future. To be in the present, we don't need to ponder. It’s the absence of thinking as a whole and not just overthinking.

The bright red balloon thinks it can’t fly now. If only it knew, only if it cut the string that was holding it back and saw how high it was truly meant to fly.”

Since we hold ourselves back because of this thin string of assumptions about our capacity, we think we can’t fly. We then believe with time that we are not meant to fly altogether, that we are not good enough to fly.

The process of telling a child they are not good enough: on the first day, the child will not believe you, but on the hundredth day, they will. It’s the consistency of the brain and others to put their own insecurities over the young minds. “If I couldn't do it, I don't see you doing it” is a very old but common sentiment.

I bought one bright red balloon just to set it free and saw it go higher and higher without blinking. Did not want to miss a single second of its freedom.”

We have an obligation to set people free, too, regardless of how we live our own lives. Buying a balloon to set it free is symbolic of giving humans the benefit of the doubt—allowing ourselves to see past our own mistakes, taking actions like letting ourselves let go of the string that is regret and blame, so we can take actions to protect others and ourselves from the string that is holding us all back.

This poem, "The Red Balloon," was written when I had found peace for the first time in a long time. I have seen freedom in different forms; not all made sense. There was always this condition on having or maintaining freedom; in the long run, I didn’t enjoy having some condition on freedom to exist. I finally got a chance to slow down, the lost memories coming back in pieces.

The fear of what you think others think of you is fatal regardless of whether we think it is trivial in making better changes in life or not. I found out the hard way; all that overthinking got me nowhere.

References

Self-critical Rumination and Associated Metacognitions as Mediators of the Relationship Between Perfectionism and Self-esteem.
Thinking about the Past and Future in Daily Life: An Experience Sampling Study of Individual Differences in Mental Time Travel.
Let’s play the blame game: The distinct effects of personal standards and self-critical perfectionism on attributions of success and failure during goal pursuit.
Letting go of blame.
“Thinking too much”: A Systematic review of a common idiom of distress.
The effect of perceived appearance judgments on psychological and biological stress processes across adulthood.