“A person who leaves home and behaves recklessly.”
Chances are that in some degree we have all been prodigals based on this definition. I left home to go away to Ohio University and found all earlier accountability to have vanished. This became concrete one day when I was standing on Court Street in downtown Athens, Ohio and realized that I could within the realm of my financial constraints, do anything I wanted and no one from the home office would know. Once that settled in, I began breathing new air. Freedom is not always free. It is a bit of a trap. No matter how much we want to believe that this is a new day with endless possibilities, we eventually run face first into our earlier self and our untamed appetites.