I am a woman in my late twenties. I have been told that I am intelligent and despite a number of setbacks, was headed down a road of success. For as far back as I can remember I was obsessed with rules and fairness, or perhaps I more feared the consequences of breaking them. Either way, to follow them was not a choice, it was mandatory in my mind. I was raised in foreign countries for the beginning of my childhood due to my father's work. I witnessed diversity and the joy and wonder of travel at a young age. My parent's are both college educated as well as my two sisters. I always was very serious when it came to morals, values, spirituality, and religion. I even considered becoming a nun at one point. I attended a private school for high school, a popular undergraduate university, and an Ivy League university for my master's degree. I lived in a large city after graduating, worked, and then returned to the small mid western town that I had uneasily called home from the age of 10 and on. I continued to work in my professional field. Although the area held memories, it was a far cry from a city, and it was quite boring. I had recently broken up with my boyfriend who I was in a long distance relationship with. I wanted to get out, feel that freedom I felt in the city, that excitement. While in the city I had learned confidence, I had learned what it means to have an essence as a woman, I learned to be myself just a little bit more. So...I decided to go looking for that freedom and that excitement here in small town life...Who I met in that journey, changed the course of my life, everything I stood for, those who would and would not support me, and my own personal view of myself. I fell in love with a man who has a criminal record, who is a felon, who later became incarcerated again, and will be on his way to prison...again. All I knew was that I have never loved a man as much as I love this man...rational went out the window. I had "been around the block" a time or two, had seen a lot of harsh, difficult, even scary situations in my life and work, but boy did I know nothing about the realities of inmates and the effects incarceration has on their loved ones. I jumped head first into murky waters and then had to learn how to swim.
