I slowly open my left eye… keeping my right closed as at this hour of the morning… it just seems like way too much to open both eyes. I reach my left arm up toward the ledge that I built to hold my books and my watch during the night and check the time…. as I do every morning. 3:58am… perfect. My mind and body have become accustomed to waking up by themselves a few minutes before my actual alarm goes off which makes the process of waking up much less jarring and I assume much more pleasant for my ‘bunkie’ as well. I turn my head to look out the window and see nothing but a deep fog covering the street lights and Coast Guard building across the soccer field that sits outside my window. Fog watch (meaning no movement on the yard until the fog clears)… I think to myself. But I get up and start getting ready because there aren’t many things that I dislike more than waking up… falling back asleep into what always turns out to be a deep, peaceful slumber… to frantically jolt up 20 minutes later because now I am late and stressed. No thank you.
As I get dressed… grab my coffee and head into the TV room to start the day… I look out the window and see nothing but fog. “Yeah… fog watch for sure” I think to myself. Then… 20 minutes later… the door opens and I am allowed to head out and go to work like any other morning. “Hmm… this is strange”. And that was the beginning of… what still is… a uniquely strange week over here at T.I and I assume throughout the BOP.
We have grown accustomed… as khaki suit wearing “adults in custody”… to expect the unexpected… get comfortable being uncomfortable… roll with the punches and basically living the cliche slogans of having no actual control of your own life. But this past week…. the slogans not only seemed to be touching our lives but the officers… the executive staff and really every single person on the compound. Starting Wednesday morning… perfectly set in the deep fog… we all started hearing rumors about DOGE (Elon’s Department of Government Efficiency) taking it’s aim at the BOP. Rumblings of mass firings… compound closures… modified lock down schedules due to staff shortages post firings… minimum security inmates being sent to home confinement… inmates with pending deportations being loaded up on buses in one massive sweep and taken to unknown facilities. The stress and anxiety was palpable. In the 3 years since I have lived behind these walls… this was the first time that I had ever experienced the entire facility feeling that underlying “uneasy-ness” that is the result of you realizing that you are no longer in control. There are forces at work that are going to directly impact your life and there is absolutely nothing that you can do to stop them. You are frozen in time… circling up with anyone and everyone that is willing to stop and commiserate with you about what is happening… what is going to happen… what may happen and what “just can’t happen… right?… I mean, that can’t happen… Can it?”
As the week progressed and the anxiety seemed to intensify across the board… I started thinking about how I am literally experiencing a microcosm of our country right now. From government employees to Immigrants to DEI initiatives to Trans People. We are living in a time where the notion of free will and personal control over our lives and how we live them is a fleeting notion. Now people… like myself… who committed a crime and are now serving their debt to society by relinquishing our societal rights in order to serve our time is one thing… we can all wrap our heads around and accept the fact that I must live in a constant state of feeling ‘out of control’. But the child who goes to school every day worried about their parents not being there when they get home. The federally funded websites that educate and provide resources for individuals living with HIV all of the sudden just disappearing. The pharmacist at VA clinics being unexpectedly let go because they failed to respond to an email listing bullet points about “what they did last week”. The correctional officer that was hired 10 months ago but technically is still in their “probationary period” being fired without caused because they haven’t been on the job long enough for the union to protect them. These individuals did not break the law… they do not owe some debt to society and they too are now waking up each day having to manage not only their daily lives but the anxiety that comes with the unknown of it all. It is a lot and I know from personal experience… it is not a pleasant way to live.
And just like that… (you really can’t make this up)… I am currently being told that the yard is going to close (12:50pm on Saturday afternoon) for the remainder of the day because there will not be staff to work recreation aka no computers… no weight pile… no rec rooms. So… I must wrap this up.
The story is still in ‘To Be Continued’ phase… both behind these walls and out in the real world… regarding what is going to happen with all of this ‘unknown’ pressure cooking our daily lives. The “lesson” is the same… control what you can control… and try your best to let the cards fall where they may with the aspects that are outside of your control.
As we say in here…. “Only way to do your time… is one day at a time”…
Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Stay Tuned.