If you are just ‘tuning in’… take a look at last week’s post (Halfway House of Horror) for context before diving into this one
The morning started a bit hectic. There was an “incident” the afternoon prior that caused the yard to be locked down and the phones to be shut off (which is standard protocol for any serious ‘event’). Normally… this wouldn’t be too big of an issue as you have to control what you can control and let the rest fall where it may but when I am supposed to be calling my boys at a certain time… the phones being shut off really raise the cortisol levels over here. And to spike the anxiety even higher… the word was that the lockdown was going to be isolated to just one day (Thursday) so when I rushed back to the unit after getting everything prepped at work early Friday morning to jump on the phone as soon as they clicked on at 6am and call the boys… and I was met with no dial tone indicating that the phones were still off… I was not pleased. “It’s only 6 over here so 9am over there… I have two more moves at 7 and 8 to try again” I tell myself… attempting to control the elevated heart rate. I have found that there aren’t many situations in here that cause more stress than telling my boys that I will call at a certain time on a certain day and then circumstances outside of my “control” do not allow me to do so. It is that ‘not wanting let them down while I am already letting them down by being here’ thing that really gets me. But back to Friday morning.
I rush back to work but don’t make it in time to get into the kitchen before the move ends so now I am stuck outside for 50 minutes… not calling my boys… not finishing the prep that I need to do for the meal at work… not doing anything besides stressing myself out. As I am standing on the North Yard outside of the kitchen… pacing back and forth trying to will the phones to turn on by 8am… I notice a deep layer of fog creeping over the compound. “F*ck” I think to myself… maybe even say out loud… as dense fog will pause any future movement on the yard until the fog clears aka I will not be able to make it back to my unit to try the phones at 8am. As each minute passes… visibility gets less and less clear. And before I know it… I am standing on the yard completely surrounded by fog. “Great. Just fantastic.”
As I am standing out there… pacing… stewing about my lack of control and blah blah blah woe is me problems… my mind goes back to all of the guys in here that thought they were leaving this month. That thought they were going to be back with their own kids… their own families and friends. That thought worrying about the pay phones to connect with their loved ones was about to be a thing of the past and my situation quickly shrunk to nothing. And as my perspective shift changed… like the heavens opening up… I saw the sun creep above the compound and the fog begin to dissipate. I look down at my watch… 8:23am… “Okay… still time”… I think to myself. 8:30am hits and “10 minute move. This begins the 10 minute move.” I hear over the loud speaker. Things are looking up baby!
I head back to the unit and as I get close to the front door… I see a guy using one of the phone. “YES!”… I jump on and quickly dial the boys… catching them just in time and immediately the anxiety melts away like butter sizzling on a grill. The day is turning around…
But this was just the beginning.
There are very few times in life behind these walls that you get genuinely fantastic news… especially fantastic news that comes at a complete surprise. I end the call with my boys and head back to work to start service. As I am walking across the yard and down the breezeway toward the North side of the compound… I can feel an energy brewing that was not there over the past few hours of me frantically running back and forth between the North and South yards all morning. Guys were huddling up… animated whispers and facial expressions that looked like… “No way!” but with a positive connotation. I register these positive vibes but don’t think too much of it as I am focused on getting back to work. But as I enter the kitchen… I see my Bunkie standing by the door to the OM. My Bunkie that was supposed to be heading back to his family at the end of this month… my Bunkie that had his world absolutely shattered when he was told that he won’t be heading home until next February… my Bunkie that has attempted to hold it together over these past two weeks but I can see it in his eyes that this news broke him and he didn’t know how he was going to make it 10 more months. I walk toward him and I can see the tears in his eyes… but it is clear that they are happy tears… he begins to smile and shake his head… “I’m going home man… I’m going home Bunkie. They reversed the half way house situation. I’m going home.” A flood of emotion comes over me and I think I gave him a hug that was so hard it lifted him off his feet. “That is incredible man. When?” “Same date. Same everything… as if it never even happened.”
Just amazing.
There are some things in this life that just work themselves out. It is extremely difficult to stay even keeled in stressful situation… especially ones as impactful as the end of long prison sentences but if we stay focused… stay positive… control our emotions and stay the course… sometimes… just sometimes…. things have a way of working out.
We were sitting in our room later that evening talking about the fact that over the course of the past 3 years… we have spent countless hours discussing perspective and specifically the perspective that prison ingrains in us to not take one aspect of this life for granted because we know how it feels to lose it all. And then this half way house situation happened. 3 weeks ago… receiving 12 months (or close to it) of half way house at the end of your sentence was expected… it was just a part of the process… until it wasn’t. And it took losing it for these past two weeks to realize how grateful we are to either be receiving it right now or when our magical dates comes in the future because that is a year of life. That is a whole year that we are no longer locked behind a gate… a whole year with our kids and our tribe… and that… is unbelievably… unspeakably valuable. Lesson learned once again.
So… as hectic as the day started… Friday turned out to be a very good day. Next time you find yourself stressed to the max… just remember that everything can change in an instant… the fog can clear… the sun can shine through… and all will be well. Just have to keep your chin to the sun and believe it.
Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Stay Hopeful.