IT WAS ALL A DREAM

I found myself standing outside one evening this past week… staring toward the San Pedro hills just west of T.I and I couldn’t help but get the all too common thought regarding being so physically close to freedom but so far away out of my head. I was standing there… looking out over the hills as the fog began to slowly cover them and thinking about how much life exists on those hills. How many houses are filled with families up there… how many people are driving home from work or running out to grab something before they tuck in for the night… and how I absolute ache to be a part of real life again. I say again… but really… the aching is not for my life “again”… it is to genuinely experience life… my real life… for the first time in as long as I can remember…

I stood there and began to “dream” about being home with my boys…. I dreamed about coming home and starting to make dinner for us… we decide that it should be movie night because the weather couldn’t be more perfect for a nice cozy night on the couch. I start to make dinner as they play in the family room. We sit down and eat with each other… talking about our days or more realistically me trying to pull all the information that I can out of them about their days… we bounce ideas back and forth about what we could do this weekend or where they might want to go… we clean up… grab some ice cream and head to the couch to find a movie. My heart hurts that my decisions and actions made this “dream” just that for myself and for them… that our reality looks nothing like this right now and I can’t do a thing about it. But as much as this is heart breaking… I know as well as I breathe that there is a new reality and a new dream on the other side of these gates for us and for that I am beyond grateful.

Then… a cruise ship slowly begins to creep into frame just beyond the Coast Guard building… The Princess Emerald… and the memories come flooding in. Memories of the last family vacation that we took with the big guy… memories of that spring break trip… memories. I can hear the music blasting out of the speakers… the massive TV screen by the pool playing clips of people partying and laughing… the hundreds of guests on the deck and at their balconies… full of excitement for what lies ahead of them. I start to think about how crazy it is that I am standing here… on a prison yard… looking at them embark on their journey… just a mere few hundreds yards away… thinking about how amazing it would feel to be on that ship with my boys… ready to watch them experience a cruise for the first time. How incredible it must feel to be free and care-free (at least for the time being) focused solely on enjoying yourself and taking advantage of the moment. I am beyond envious of all those unknown faces staring back at me. And then there is that… all those faces staring back at me… thinking the exact opposite thoughts that I am thinking at this very moment. They must be looking over here thinking… “Damn… could you imagine being in prison… watching cruise ships head out to sea while you are locked in there? That must be absolutely horrible.” Both of us… essentially in the same physical location… but experiencing polar opposite things at the exact same time. Pretty wild.

“End of move. This ends the 10 minute move.” I hear over the loud speaker and it blasts me back to reality. I turn to head inside and can’t help but marvel at where I find myself in life… absolutely surreal at times like this. But it also makes me think that we all have our own feelings of “we are here and they are there” as we navigate life in the real world as well. Not to the drastic extent as I am experiencing but in other ways as we walk and run and stumble through life. Observing others who seemingly have it better or worse than we do at that exact moment and either feeling grateful that we aren’t them or wishing that we were… if only for a moment. I guess it is all just part of the human experience in one way or another.

Okay… that wraps up “The Evening Thoughts of a Federal Prisoner”. I know it is hard but try to slow down life out there just enough to allow yourself to day dream sometimes… you never know what you may discover in those dreams.

Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Happy Dreaming.