Well… that’s one year guys. Absolutely surreal. Never in my wildest dreams (or fears to be more accurate) would I EVER have imagined that I would be in federal prison… EVER. But here we are and I have decided that I am going to look at this milestone (and the future milestones) as an anniversary. Anniversaries are to be celebrated… to look back at the year prior and celebrate the growth… the experience… the lessons learned and lessons taught… the highlights and the lowlights… the belly laughs and the cries… the visits… the phones calls… the heartbreak and the small victories… all of it. I choose to celebrate the fact that I have come this far… that my boys, my family, my friends have all come this far. I choose to look at what has been accomplished and the foundation that has been built… and will continue to be built… for future growth as opposed to the mountain in the distance that still must be hiked.
I run on the treadmill every day… sometime first thing in the morning… sometimes in the afternoons after work but every single time… I realized that no matter what running goal I have for the day (whether it be distance or time)… I always find myself subconsciously saying… “Okay – 18 more minutes to go”… “Okay – 2.5 miles more to go”. My brain (and I think many of us are alike) automatically calculates how much “work” is left before we are done with the task at hand. I am sure this is a survival mechanism that we learned somewhere along our evolutionary lines… a mental gymnastics of sorts in order for us to push through the struggle and complete whatever it is that we are doing. I started to think about life and all of the things that we track with “time”. The moment that we enter the education system… we are constantly tracking how many years we have in each level of schooling until we are “finished”. Then we start working and track how long we will stay at X position until we will get a raise or be able to advance our career in some fashion. Then we start dating someone and try to figure out the “proper” amount of time before we propose or decide to have children together. Then we gauge at what age our kids will be when we move into a different house or a different city for whatever reason we make up in our head. Then they start school and the process starts all over again. Time… tracking time… it is an inescapable part of our lives. And then you add a prison term and the tracking of time is taking to a whole new level… off the charts…
But I am making a conscious effort to track time in a different way… I want to track the growth… the personal lessons… the introspection… the constant puzzle of “prison parenting”… successfully maintaining connections with my boys and loved ones…figuring out how to live a full life when most of my life has been stripped away from me. These are the things that I want to remind myself to focus on. I want to be able to appreciate every single day for what it is without constantly allowing myself to fall into the trap of “how much is left”.
I can vividly remember sitting in the car with my mom outside these walls one year ago… the smell of the ocean… the sound of the seagulls… the shock of the barbed wire… the nervous energy… the fear of the unknown… the surreal feeling that still has not dissipated and may never will. I assume I will always vividly remember these moments… and I hope that I do because they are the defining moments between my old life and my new. Although the current iteration of the “new” is incredibly hard and devastating as it relates to the collateral damage it entails… it is also filled with hope for the future and I know that future is packed full of joy… of experiences… of me being PRESENT for my boys.. for my family… for my friends… for myself.
I sincerely appreciate every single person that is currently a part of my life… you have all helped me in ways that simple words could never fully capture… thank you so very much.
I look forward to living in the moments… finding joy… feeling the full garment of emotions… growing… dreaming… learning… expressing… communicating… loving… showing up… discovering who I am… genuinely being that person… I look forward… gratefully.
Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Go hug your kids for me.