What was your Independence Day?

When I took up my sword and shield to oppose the advancing Napoleonic army.

At this point in my life I’m 34, married almost 12 years, two kids I would say graduating high school was my Independence Day. I didn’t have to get up and go to school everyday. I could do whatever I wanted. Go to college, get a job, be a bum, whatever. It was the first time I ever recall feeling totally free. I still lived at home when I graduated high school, but I was 18 and my parents didn’t tell me when I could come and go or anything, so I didn’t much mind living there at all. I did move out shortly before my 19th birthday tho.

Divorce.

That would be the day I told my dad that I didn’t want to live with him anymore. I was 13 and I said no more of you and I left the next day to my mother’s house.

ca. August 13, 2001. I ended my relationship with people who had been abusive to me since childhood.

Divorce in 2003….forever free!

I’m pretty sure I haven’t had it yet haha.

There have been many, from drawing my first paycheck—a big leap!—to shedding a smothering boyfriend to starting a new life in California. Freedom isn’t absolute and total but comes in stages, is always relative to something, and is always limited by something.

The last great one was putting the workaday life behind me, forswearing cubicledom forever, and gaining control over the hours of my daily life for the first time ever. My choices are still constrained by resources and physical impediments, but this is the closest thing to freedom I expect ever to have, and it is perfectly glorious.

The day I bought the DVD. A while ago now but still lives fresh in the memory.

The day I confronted the abusive person from my past.

As @Jeruba said, there have been many over the years to varying degrees.

The biggies are when I moved out of my folks place and bought a house at 25; when I publically resigned from an overbearing and abusive job and walked away; when I pulled away from my toxic mother after 37 years.

I hope there’ll be more.

My biggies:
~Outside of $1,000 and miscellaneous tiny tiny expenses (like needing socks or something stupid), being financially independent of parents during college
~Breaking relationships with emotionally draining friends at the end of college
~Moving out of home state to start the rest of my scientific career

Edit: I think my actual Independence Day was when I realized I had done all these things and the effect they had on me.

Very nice point, @Iclamae: that the moment of independence is not in the action but in the recognition of its meaning to you. Seen in that light, a very small act could have a great meaning:

— throwing away a souvenir of a past you’ve finally left behind
— putting something down and not picking it up again
— erasing a phone number
— choosing to purchase an item that you know <name the person> wouldn’t like or approve of
— refusing to take the bait
— teaching yourself that a certain word is just a word
— stepping inside a strange place
— buying a single ticket

Sometimes the tiny revolutions are the most satisfying.

July 1, 1981 when I joined the army.

@Jeruba That might be my favorite answer I have ever read on fluther. Thanks!