I have noticed over the past 6 months or so that one of my new “hats” in here is to be the guy that new guys come to if this is their first time incarcerated to walk the track and try to wrap their head around what they have in store for the next X amount of years of their life. While there are certainly cases in which this walk around the track is cut short after one lap because I can immediately tell that said new khaki suit is here to enjoy himself as opposed to try to productively get through his time and get back to the real world… most of the track talks recently have been mutually beneficial (I think). It is crazy to me that I have slid into this role as I vividly remember walking the track for the first time myself… overwhelmed with so many emotions… so much anxiety… so lost and numb… feels like yesterday.
One of these chats happened this past week and as we started the second lap… the “new fish” asked me… “Well… what is life like? Like how does it all work in here?” As I thought about the best way to answer his question… I was hit with a humorous but extremely valid comparison…
“It is like one of those zombie apocalypse movies mixed with the book Lord of the Flies”… I said. “Huh? What do you mean??”… he says with a very confused look on his face (understandably). I go on to explain. You know in those movies… some sort of horrible event happens… whether it is an alien force that destroys civilization or a disease or some other event that causes mass chaos. Well in our case… we caused this event. Once the event takes place… the characters in the movie find themselves secluded in a strange… new environment or location that they now must call home with the other strangers that are fighting to survive alongside them. And most of these strangers are man-children (alla Lord of the Flies) and half the battle is navigating their personalities and decisions that unfortunately end up touching everyone’s life. Welcome to prison. Once they accept the fact that there is no chance of survival outside of this new environment… they begin to build a life for themselves within the confines of their new circumstances. Slowly but surely… this place that was once nothing but a group of people lost and confused… starts to run like a little self-contained… self-sustaining city. There is a little store that you can visit to buy food and supplies… commissary. There are fellow survivors that become the cooks for the other survivors… chow hall. There are the plumbers and the handy men and laundry and tutors and work out programs and basically some “budget version” of everything that you have in the real world… all within the walls of your new “home”. It becomes a place that you slowly begin to feel comfortable in… never fully comfortable and never content to stay one moment longer than you have to stay here… but comfortable enough to survive and in a zombie apocalypse… that’s all that matters… right?
After we laughed a bit and discussed certain aspects of life in here more seriously and a bit deeper… I told him that he knows where to find me and that I would be here for whatever he needs… just let me know. He left and I started thinking about the months and weeks that led up to me joining this village of survivors and feverishly scouring the internet for any nugget of information that may give me some insight into what I could expect once I started this journey. I hope that this (and all my posts to some extent) give some sense of what life is like in here for any of you out there that are about to join the tribe. At the end of the day… it is about successfully surviving until the miracle happens in the third act and someone or something arrives at this village that we created for ourselves and takes us back to the real world or shows us the way to a new and improved world. It is hard… it is strange… it will test every part of your being… mentally… physically and emotionally… but know that you will be okay and that there are others here… going through the exact same thing… and we will make it to that new world together.
Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Now go read Lord of the Flies and watch I am Legend and get ready for the adventure 😉