I started to write something… then I deleted it and started thinking about something else to dive into this week but here I am… back at the original starting line because I can’t stop thinking about and day dreaming about it… love. The reason that I deleted my first pass was because I started feeling as though I do not deserve to talk about love. I made so many (so so many) bad decisions and actions throughout my “love life”… I completely utterly absolutely f*cked up my marriage by these decisions and actions so how could I kneel here and write about love? But then I decided that… yes, I most certainly went down all the wrong paths that one could go down while in love and I am (and forever will be) deeply regretful and sorry for my behavior and the pain that this behavior caused that ultimately led to the end of my marriage. But there is a possibility that these horrible decisions and actions may allow me to see the journey through a different lens and hopefully this lens allows me to learn from these mistakes and take the ‘high road’ in the future. I choose to believe that this will be the case. And I really hope that this belief is correct because I have to say… I really do love love… like a lot.
The impetus for this love thought journey over the past several days is one of the “OG’s” in here that I walk the track with almost every afternoon for an hour said something to me last Tuesday that really latched on. We were about 5 laps in and he says… “Zach. I am 69 years old. I have been locked inside some variation of this place for the last 14 years and 10 months. My face looks wrinkled. My body feels tired. My muscles are flabby. But you know what has never changed?” “What’s that?” I say. “My heart. My heart still holds the hope it held over a decade ago. It still finds joy in being outside. And most of all… it is filled with unbelievable love and gratitude for my wife.” He goes on to tell me about his wife and how they have been together for longer than I have been alive… that she has stuck with him through this entire journey and has never… not once… “chastised him” (as he says) about being the driver of the guy that robbed those banks almost 20 years ago. And not only has she stuck by him… he has stuck by her as well… which I think is an overlooked but important aspect of relationships with an incarcerated partner.
I have seen it so many times in here… guys simply give up on their person. Whether they can’t overcome the anxiety associated with the… “What are they doing out there?” or the guilt that they feel by being in here while their partner is out there “waiting for them” is just too much to handle… they cut ties. Now… I fully understand the guilt and not wanting to put your person through years of prison visits and 15 minute phone calls and waiting for that date to come and praying that you both are still compatible on the other side of the journey. But what if your person doesn’t care about any of that? What if he/she only cares about being there with you and for you? What if he or she would take the 15 minute calls and the annoying email service and the frustration of visitation because they love you? And even with all the bullsh*t that comes with this journey… they would choose that over someone else because they choose you… every day… through the good and the bad… it’s you and only you. Man… that is a serious love and that is a love that should not be given up on… no matter the circumstances.
I think about “OG” and that he will be getting out in about a month and what that will look like for him and his wife. I think about my sister and my brother in law… I think about my Mom and Step Dad…. I think about my friends out there and other couples that are thriving and growing and loving each other every day and I think a lot about my situation. Love is a complicated and non-linear journey… that is for certain. I think love is really about timing. We start so young in life… ahh young love is the best…but inevitably… we are going to make mistakes. I believe that we go into loving another person having good intentions… I know that I have and I believe that our counter parts do as well. What we learn is that love is about what we are ready to give and what we are ready to receive at that particular point in our life. We come in and out of people’s lives… people come in and out of ours lives. It is about fate and luck… and hopefully… we don’t hurt each other too much on our journey to finding a more peaceful existence together.
As Owen Wilson says in “Wedding Crashers”…. “Love is our soul’s recognition of it’s counter part in another”… I really like that sentiment… even if he just read it on a bumper sticker…
Stay Healthy. Stay Active.
Love deeply. Love kindly… both yourself and whomever you are thinking about right n