I feel like it’s been a lifetime that I’ve been here.
And it has…
I woke up this morning before my alarm clock went off…
Something I never do.
I thought to myself, “Well, this is the day I have been waiting for.”
Sleepwalking through the last two decades of my life.
I tried to roll over and just go back to sleep but couldn’t…
Time to put my life back together.
I got up and made my bed.
That’s the last time I have to do that chore.
I think maybe I will never make my bed again after this.
Then breakfast rolls around.
Strange… In the chow hall, inmates I have never spoken to walked by and wished me well.
Even if they couldn’t get past their prejudice and misinformed ignorance…
They at least walked by and put their hands on my shoulder as if to say good luck… You are doing something that we all hope and dream to do.
I felt like an Olympic Gold Medalist.
I have achieved the unachievable…
I sat down across from my friends… My family.
I saw the sadness behind their smiles, and it hurt me to know that I was leaving them behind.
Every person in the chow hall was looking at me.
Some with envy…Some with hope… Some with blank stares that only a person who has been in the bottomless depths of despair can understand and recognize.
I have so many thoughts and emotions running through me.
How will tomorrow’s meals be without me here?
Will my spot be left empty as if the ghost of my memory might occupy it? Or maybe some new inmate will clumsily break the spell by sitting down there?
How does this work?
How do I go on?
How do I survive again being ripped away from my family… Everything I know?
How will my life be, knowing the fences and razor wire won’t be there to protect me from all the bad things out there?
Who will come by my room and check on me every 15 minutes to see if I am alright… Still alive?
Who will make me laugh and smile with a funny joke or story?
This is so much harder than I imagined.
I feel like I’m going to prison all over again.
Losing my place again in the world I have come to know and find comfort and safety in.
This is the last time I will get to see and touch the people who have guided me and comforted me in my most miserable circumstances.
No more homemade birthday cards or commissary family dinners with “The Guys”.
I have spent a lifetime with these incredible men.
They have laughed and sometimes cried with me.
They have each and every one helped shape me into the person that I have become.
I owe them a debt greater than I can ever pay.
I am so sad to be leaving them behind.
But I know I have to keep moving forward.
I know also that they will be OK.
That’s what we do here… We look out for each other.
We are a community of the forgotten… The unwanted… The misunderstood.
We are human beings who come together and form bonds forged in the worst of circumstances.
Society forgets or overlooks that we are so much more than the crimes that we committed back when we were entirely different people.
We are the fathers, brothers, uncles, nephews and spouses that disappeared with the simple bang of a gavel.
No one can go back and change the past… You can only alter the future based on what you know now.
I have grown so much over this experience.
So much that I will admit that I deserved an appropriate “Time Out”, though not the eternity that I ended up with.
But I have also learned that there are some really kind, caring and good people surrounding me in here that still have a lot of good things to accomplish out there.
EVERYONE HERE DESERVES SOME FORM OF A SECOND CHANCE.
It’s time to bring us home…
Bring us ALL home.