I wasn’t going to write about this. I don’t exactly know why. Maybe it felt too personal… maybe because it involved the boys and their Mom. I’m not certain as to the reason I felt that I could not share this experience but as I sat down to write… this was the only thing that felt genuine. So… let me set the table.
Over the past month… I have missed my boys tremendously. This longing for them is nothing new… it is a perpetual burn… day in and day out throughout this journey but it has been deeper… more physical as of late. I wanted to hug them… I wanted to be there with them to put them to sleep at night and tell them that I love them and read to them and sing them silly songs. I wanted to go into their room in the morning and wake them up and wrestle them until we go downstairs and make pancakes together. I wanted to be their Dad in real life… not for 15 minutes at a time in prison. I needed to do something. So I started to think about what I could possibly do that would be as close as I could get to wrapping my arms around them and holding them. As I thought about this… I got an idea.
Every time that I am walking the track at night… looking up at the moon and thinking about them… more specifically imagining them looking up at that same moon many miles away… I am wearing 1 of 2 sweatshirts. Every time I head out in the early morning to walk that same track and watch the sunrise thinking about what they may be doing right now at this exact moment… I’m wearing the other sweatshirt. When it is cold at night and our thin blanket isn’t enough to keep me warm… I’m wearing one of the sweatshirts. These sweatshirts have covered the arms that I desperately want to use to hug my boys for over 3 years now and they are the closest thing to my real arms that I can give them. So… I decide that I was going to send them my sweatshirts and write a note explaining to them everything that I am feeling. Tell them that if they ever feel the same need to “hug” their Dad… they can put on one of these sweatshirts or just squeeze it really tight… and hopefully they can feel how much love has been baked into them over the years. I get a box… I roll the sweatshirts up… I write the note… and I mail it off to the boys and their Mom… feeling a little less pain knowing that some piece of me is going to be able to wrap “my arms” around them within a week.
A week passes… no word on the package. The boys were out of town over the weekend so I figure maybe it will be there when they get back so I don’t ask about it. Then… about 10 days later… I receive an email.
The email was from their Mom and without getting into specifics… the whole thing did not… in any way, shape or form… land well.
I read the email… then I read it again. I was extremely upset. When we lead with vulnerability and the outcome is not what we anticipated or in this case… the polar opposite of the anticipated reaction… we are hurt and when we are hurt… we tend to act out emotionally. One thing that I have learned throughout this journey… is to never… ever… allow yourself to respond to something that triggers you in that moment. EVER. That goes for situations that take place behind these walls but especially when dealing with situations that deal with the real world. Take time to process whatever it is and hopefully allow the emotions of it all to dissipate to a point where your vision clears and you can respond with a clear mind.
Thankfully… due to many face-plants in the past… I have learned my lesson in this regard… so I stepped away from the keyboard and started processing the email. In doing so… I began to understand a tangible lesson that I believe is crucially important to anyone living behind these walls or going to be putting on the khaki suit in the near future.
There are two drastically different perspectives between us in here and our people in the real world out there. We live this life behind these gates day in and day out… week after week… month after month and year after year. And eventually… in order to mentally survive this “life”… we begin to normalize our environment and the life that we live within the confines of said environment. We have to… because the reality is… in this moment in time… this is our life. But this is not the case for our loved ones in the real world. They did not break the law… they are innocent bystanders to the wreckage that we caused by doing what we did that landed us behind these walls. And there is and never will be anything “normal” about having your Dad… Son… Brother… Uncle… Husband… Ex-Husband living in a Federal Prison while you are living life the best way you can within the new reality that he created through his decisions and actions. And when he does things from prison… such as send his sons sweatshirts…. in his mind he is sending them “his” sweatshirts but to the outside world… the perspective may be that he is sending them “prison sweatshirts” independent of his intention. And the last thing that our loved ones need or want is a physical reminder of the fact that Dad is in prison. This is not to say that the gesture was “wrong” necessarily… it was just sent from one perspective… the one from Dad inside prison without the thought of how it may be interpreted by the receiving party. And that short sighted perspective is the downfall… not the gesture itself.
Lesson learned. Perspective shift understood… emotion removed from the situation so that I was able to calmly see things from her view point as opposed to my extremely biased and emotionally invested POV. In another relationship or circumstance or age of the boys… the gesture may have elicited a different response. With every variable change comes a new outcome but in my specific circumstance… in my specific relationship… any item coming from prison is a prison item… not Dad’s item and I must respect that for what it is. I am in prison… they are not and that is the ultimate trump card.
I will never stop trying to come up with creative ways to show my boys that I love them. Because I love them more than I will ever know how to verbally explain and sometimes… I just need to do something more than tell them. And in doing so… I am sure there will be more trying and stumbling and falling and getting back up along the way. That is part of the journey itself so I will continue to embrace my scars and use them as road maps along my path forward to being able to hug them with my actual arms on the other side of this thing.
Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Stay Focused on the Big Picture.