From Dragonfly: Reaching Out

One of the tenants of my recovery program is to help others. Those "others" don't have to be in recovery as well, it's just a way to connect with people and realize that we make ourselves happy when we make someone else happy. One of my friends here is having a real hard time with things right now. She is facing several years. Most of us will be gone before her, even though our "crimes" are not all that dissimilar from one another. She "HATES" it here (her words). I understand her feelings and her inability to see anything good out of this place. I wish I had something to magically take her pain away, but I am not a genie and this is definitely not a fairy tale.

So, I told her that we were going to make a "grateful" list. She didn't want to "play." I named things I am grateful for, "shoes on my feet, food in my stomach, a mattress, sunshine, ..." She still did not want to play. But I kept going, "friends, not having to be alone on my birthday coming up, ability to buy things in commissary, deodorant..." Finally, she piped in and said something sarcastic. It was movement in the right direction.

In my room, I read my daily reading and it was all about "connecting to others" and how our connection with people is what can bring us peace and purpose. I read it out loud to my friend. Tears welled up in her eyes. I know, she knows, that the thing we are most grateful for are those few hours of sitting around with our friends acting "normal," like playing scrabble, or filling out a crossword, or sharing a meal. She says that she never cries here, but I've made her cry three times. Each time was about my telling her things like, "you have to forgive yourself," "you are a good person," "there is a future when all of this is over," "other people's opinions do not matter, what matters is your own opinion of yourself," the serenity prayer, and things like that. All of which I believe. I assured her that I am her friend. I gave her a chocolate bar (that brought a little smile). Seeing her come out of her head and all the negativity is so rewarding. By the end of yesterday, my friend was her old self again. Perhaps, a little sadder than usual, but we all have those days here.

In other news, Star's baby was born on Friday and I just saw her for the first time since. It's weird to not see her "baby bump." The baby was born with Star's color hair and he is going home from the hospital today or tomorrow. He is healthy, but they needed to keep an eye on him for a couple reasons early on. Star says that the hospital treated her great, although once the baby was born, she was shackled to the hospital bed. An officer was with her the entire time. She did eat better food. Sad to think that hospital food is better than what we get here, but there you go... She said she enjoyed a real turkey sandwich. That sounds good! Star's parents and oldest daughter are heading to Fort Worth today to pick up the baby. He will live with them until her release, which is just over one month from now. Actually, she is moving in with her parents upon release to get herself and her children settled. She is very lucky that her parents are supporting her and taking care of her children.

Yesterday, after our workday was done, I was in my bed waiting for 4pm count, when I realized, "oh my god, it's Monday, I teach Monday nights." I, luckily, had plenty of time to prepare and the class went well. It says a lot when the students are not interested in leaving at the end of the hour! One of the things I love about teaching is seeing the "spark" in the students as they "get it." I had them all write a paragraph last night and they didn't even realize it until it was done, because we literally wrote it one sentence at a time. But they all did it, and they all wrote GOOD paragraphs!!

We are just about half way through my sentence (with good time)... 5 months is within the next week. I guess that means I'm about to get over the "hump" of being here. There's no way of knowing what the second half of this experience will be like, but I'm glad I get to connect with my people back home and I promise to try and write more often to them... for some reason, writing the same thing over and over again gets difficult. There's just not much to share. I do love reading about their lives, though, which they continue to send me in letters all the time!! I guess it's their version of "reaching out" and it is sooooo appreciated!!!