The Last Week

What am I doing specifically in this last week to prepare to self surrender? So many things, but I am happy to highlight a couple of them:

- Instead of waking up to my cell phone alarm, I'm waking to my watch alarm so I can get used to it. I've also set it for the same time I'll be needing to wake at Carswell. I have tough mornings and need to acclimate myself.

- I'm also trying to get used to sleeping with one pillow, as I've been a two pillow gal a long time.

- I sent several of my favorite digital pictures to Walgreens to print. Not a ton, but a handful that I am mailing to myself just before my self-surrender. I'm hoping my friends will find fun pics with me in with them that they may send me, but I wanted some home memories to start with.

- I made a pile of my college transcripts to date to carry with me into the prison. I'm also still getting the remainder of my medical records together.

- I made sure my friend Sporty knows what clothes to send me for my release clothing.

- I gave my important passwords to my surrogates for when I'm gone. If you can't trust the person, don't make them a coach/surrogate for you!

- I figured out all the bills I could, my budget, my general commissary monthly need, and set up arrangements. No guarantees that everything will be perfect, but that's part of the consequences. Worst thing I could do is take no responsibility and put it all on someone else.

- I'm going to send out a reminder of my mailing address, the way the email system works, and that those who are emailing with me should check their spam mail in the two or so weeks following my ss.

Goodbyes are getting harder, especially with the people I'm closest with. It's almost too hard to get emotional at all, so I just say, "see ya." I'll be talking with them by phone anyway before I go. It's hard to believe that literally, as a new school year is beginning, I too am on a new path of learning. 

As a child I was a very lonely and hurt kid and I used to wish my parents WOULD send me off to military school. I figured I would be safer and better loved there, even with the hard discipline and rules. I may be a rarity of a kid to want to leave home that bad. I guess in some ways, that wish is coming true a little too late in life at a time when I do not need to leave my current life to feel safe or loved. It's very important, though, to remember that for most of us it is only temporary. All these preparations are only to give us the love and security we need to bring with us in an unknown, but it will not be forever for most of us. We will be coming home. Then I'll be able to write about life after I finally got my childhood wish...