is this freedom?

Stumbling across my old journals from Peru last summer, I found my entry from when I got stuck in Andahualas en route to Cuzco, a small dot on very selective maps that cannot be accessed by any place other than a long long bus ride. While there, I found myself at Lake Pacucha, the only person around for miles as I had to walk quite a ways to reach it. I sat by the lake and watched a storm blow through a mountain range in the distance.

On June 29, 2008, I wrote the following:
I felt liberated in a way that I didn’t know existed. I had no specific plans, responsibilities, or anyone to talk to or tell where I am going. I wish that I could live my life with this sense of freedom, yet know that once I return to Allie, my mom, and back to reality, living entirely for the pleasure of myself will be nearly impossible. And while that saddens me, it it also met with great excitement to get back to the familiar.

I have been writing about the familiar within my thesis for several months now, and have recently hit a wall that frustrated me and made me want to quit. I have been grappling with this sense of familiarity and what it means to me, growing exhausted every time I try making something new, dissatisfied with its lack of clarity. But maybe I will never find this clarity. Maybe that is part of what I am trying to define, the undefinable and its shifting journey. I sat by that lake feeling completely alone, clinging to the thought of seeing home in a few weeks, and now that I am home and very far removed from that seemingly different life, I want to escape once more. So maybe familiarity is impossible. But I am still plagued with this one question, is this freedom?