Hard Days and Nights

I had a really hard day and night yesterday. I am not ashamed to admit that I cried myself to sleep. The enormity of the task of trying for the sentence modification and how Isaac will function out in the free world got to me. I worry he is institutionalized. He has spent more of his adult life in prison then out of it. After having a conversation with someone who works in prison advocacy, I got some potentially devastating news about one of his charges. Upon taking his plea agreement 3 years ago, he was not well informed. It makes me so angry that he was misinformed or uninformed or not informed of anything period.

Anyway I cried and cried, I ate bad food, I didn't exercise. I slept. I used every bad coping skill in my arsenal and felt devastated. I honestly wondered if this could be the demise of our relationship? If Isaac's "everything will be fine" attitude had me feeling so secure, that I missed the danger up ahead signs. I wrote an impassioned email to him full of anger and desperation, but then I stopped myself from sending it, because I know that gets us nowhere and it upsets him and makes him feel powerless. Well damn it I feel powerless too though! I didn't send it, I want to take some time to think about all this information, but it is eating me up inside. I am vague about Isaac's charges on purpose. It is pretty much prison wife etiquette not to discuss your husband's charges. I also wanted people to understand that Isaac could be any one of your men, sons, husbands. The charge doesn't matter, the experience, the journey does. I always write and speak of redemption for mistakes. I believe in the idea that one can make right what was wrong. It just seems like our judicial system doesn't want to believe in redemption. We have a society that screams about second chances and a system that wants to lock people up and throw away the key.

So here I am the next day. I feel rather broken and I have no one physically in front of me who will listen and can fully understand this situation. So I come to all of you, who know this feeling well. I know I am not alone. We are everywhere and this digital connection I have with all of you keeps me going. People make jokes that I am online too much and on every social media site. I don't think it is funny that people come to me for help when they feel alone, or I can spread information to so many. That's empowerment.

I have a lot to do today. A very busy day that my body wants to shut down on, but I am going to walk one step at a time and try and get through it because I know all of you are doing the same and that gives me strength..

I'm Exhausted and Nostalgic

I feel tired, pretty damn exhausted to be exact. I am trying so hard to keep up my workout and eating regimen and write Isaac and visiting, and work, and begin the moving process. I am starting to feel a bit overwhelmed. When I was driving back from the gym, it was just starting to get light out and I was looking at the frozen lake and the park and the suns rays peeking out. I was listening to Lana Del Rey and the words "summer nights in mid July, when you and I were forever wild," came on and it made me sad and so nostalgic. Isaac and I could be having a morning walk by the lake, we could be stealing kisses behind the big oak trees, lord I sound like a teenager, but that is what I feel like at times when it comes to Isaac. We didn't have much time together before he was gone, and we missed so many relationship milestones. We missed the beauty of falling in love out in the world. What we had out here was lust, with some feelings tossed in between. We fell in love in prison, we discovered each other behind bars. So basically I am nostalgic for what I have not had, little nuanced acts that want to bring me to tears when I think of them.

My mood is so much better with the exercise and the demise of winter slowly yet surely. Better days are coming, I can feel that. I pray that Isaac can get this sentence modification. I pray we can begin to make moments that before had got lost with prison. I'm in love and I want to express that, not always through the written word, or through pictures, or phone calls. I want to feel the warm skin of my lover and remind him of when we were "forever wild," our kind of forever wild.

No More!

Winter go away! I drove at 6:30am in snow, snow, snow to the gym. I want spring already! 

Keeping Busy

The biggest problem I have had since Isaac became incarcerated is keeping busy. I work only part time and living in a small town there is not a lot in the way of hobbies or activities. Well I have taken up working out both for my health and as something to do and it helps my mood a lot. Isaac and I made a bet that we were going to lose 20 lbs together, so here goes nothing. I am heading to my therapist's, and then to the gym for some major working out. Maybe even a class, which I am really shy about. I figure if I have to drive a half hour to the gym, then I might as well stay for awhile.

This Matter of Waiting

Sometimes I feel like all I do is wait. I wait for letters, I wait in the waiting room for visitation, I wait for him to call, etc...I feel like waiting is my professional job. Don't get me wrong I have become efficient at waiting, but sometimes it just gets to me. I feel this listless feeling, I feel all pent up at the same time, the only way the tension dissipates is by hearing his voice or reading his words. I know my sun rises and sets with Isaac, and this scares me at times. I worry about what exactly am I waiting for. Is the man that comes out after possibly 6 straight years of incarceration going to be the person I met. We are married for goodness sakes, and although many saw that as a foolish move, getting married in prison, it only strengthened our bond. What I am saying though is this is no light matter. I am waiting for my HUSBAND.This and any type of waiting has substance to it, a weight to it that can either break or mend.

We have a lot at stake with our relationship, with the endless days that go by that I sit her wishing he was here with me and him wishing the same. We have planned an altered future together and we want to see it come to pass. Sometimes at night I lay in bed choking back sobs because the loss of him is so great. The sound of his voice is really like a form of salvation and that scares me. It scares me that I love him so much and that I have put so much on hold for him. I think about the give and take and I am obviously not blaming him for not being able to buy me flowers or take me on a date, but just the thought of such acts baffle me. Will our life ever be normal? He will have the word "felon" practically stamped on his forehead for his life and it will not just be him it effects. It will effect me and our future children. I hate the way society boasts about second chances in life and then never gives them. He will always be that horrible 7 digit number to them and I will always be the fool that married him. I do not care. I love my man and I will stick by him through thick and thin. That is not a question. I guess I am just venting about the idea of waiting, waiting, waiting, always waiting for something to happen, for something period, so I think it is important that I make some good moves in my life.

I have started to exercise daily after joining a gym and I plan on moving to find a good place for Isaac and I to live when he comes home. Moving is not small deal to me. I have lived in my current place almost 5 years. I can't even remember what it is like to move. The search will be stressful, but I will be ok. I think to counteract that waiting, you have to keep moving, keep going, keep hope and planning, and dreams alive.

Love

I was reading a book the other day and it instructed me to write about love. It didn't specify to write about how it feels or what it looks like, etc...It just said to write about love. So I thought I would.

Love is your yawn when you are exhausted from too little sleep and the way you stretch your arms simultaneously. This is love because you still have time to see your wife even though your eyes are drooping. Love is seeing the tears drip from your eyes on our wedding day. The way after we take our visitation picture you run your fingers through my hair at the risk of getting caught. Love is every song you ever tell me to listen to and the tears that run down my face when I actually get a chance to listen to them.

Love was how you bugged the CO's, even writing the warden to get a new jumpsuit for our wedding so you could look fresh for your wife. They gave you one so you would stop bugging them. Love is how you hold my hands in yours and trace your fingers around the edges of the decade old scars on my wrists. How when I walk to the vending machine you watch my every move and mouth "I love you" over and over again until I come back to our tiny table. Love is the pride you have in me.

 Love is understanding my weight loss struggle and tearing articles out of magazines and sending them to me on curbing your hunger, or how to not eat past a certain time.  Love is watching your face as you blow me a kiss from behind those bars as I walk out of the visiting room, knowing good and well there is a line of men standing right behind you probably judging your every move.

Love is knowing I am scared of everything on this journey and comforting me even though you are the one who probably needs way more comfort. Love is the tears that fall as I write this post knowing I can't say good morning to my husband as he rises. Love is the intricate web of your handwriting on paper, the words that make or break my day. Love is knowing that the intensity between us matches nothing I have ever experienced, but knowing that you cannot be my all or I will not survive. Love is fake eyelashes and curled hair. Straightening wrinkled clothes from car rides to look pretty for you.

Love is your inability to give up on me when I seem crazy and my inability to give up on you period. Your incarceration has and has not defined our love. Our love was strengthened within the bounds of your incarceration, but love was looking at you walking towards me for the first time ever that November day and knowing I was seeing love coming toward me.

Choices or None At All

And...it's a new water pump for my car. 240 dollars the mechanic says. I want to scream. I called Isaac's dad and he said he thinks he can replace it, but I'm a little worried. I don't have $240 so do I even have a choice? 

Another wrench thrown in, oh and I realized after going to the store 3 times I forgot to buy toilet paper.

Early Morning Thoughts

Well life is throwing some curve balls at me outside of Isaac's incarceration. I have suddenly become plaqued by severe joint pain in my arms and underwent a battery of tests. I am waiting on the results. The steroids I was put on are raising my blood sugar horribly and the pain is pretty bad. We got a big snow storm yesterday and all of that is deciding whether to melt or stay. It looks like stay as of this morning with a temp of 7 degrees. My car's coolant level keeps falling low, even though there are no signs of a leak. Just the usual random occurrences that make up my life.

I had joined a gym and was going regularly, but now with my arms, and with the coolant issue I am afraid going will be too much. I do have a stationary bike at home, my best bet for any cardio exercise. Myself and a woman from Instragram were doing a cleanse together, but apparently with joint pain you must refrain from citrus, which was the main ingredient in the cleanse.

I know I sound like all I am doing is stating the negative, and maybe I am. I am grateful for many things though. I am grateful for waking up warm in such cold temps. I am thankful for my body overall being able to function and it should at my age! I'm in my early 30's for goodness sakes. I'm thankful that I was able to get up and do a couple of chores around the apartment, unlike yesterday where I was in bed the whole day in pain.

Most importantly I am grateful to feel loved. I wrote Isaac a jpay about the fact that I wasn't feeling well and he wrote back that he is thinking of me and praying that the problem could be solved. He has seen me through a lot of health issues. I got a beautiful card from Isaac the other day apologizing for some of the past mistakes he had made and it finally did sink in that he thinks about those mistakes often and does not take them lightly. I can't hold him to them for the rest of our relationship. I'll post the outside if the card, the words were meaningful. 

I miss him more than I can explain as usual, and all I want is to have him here, but I am stronger than pity for myself, so I will go about my way today: call the doctor, the mechanic, write Isaac if my arms will allow, and continue to think about the future. 

Legal Matters

My husband and I have increasingly been thinking about the future and his "rehabilitation" in prison. He has been on the wait list for some courses for almost 2 years, and it is getting to the point of being ridiculous. He has done so many correspondence courses, he has bugged prison staff about programs and has gotten nothing in return. We realize that action has to be taken. We want to try for a sentence modification so we can get him into some real rehabilitative settings.

Isaac had an issue with substances and has always wanted to go to rehab. He has never been to, never even had therapy, individual or group, and I think he could really benefit from it. Prison is not the streets, there are whole new pressures that exist out here and I secretly have fears that he might use again.

I spent part of the afternoon calling various rehabs in the area and discussing the situation with them. Most of them were very helpful and I feel optimistic about the future. I think that's what I need to feel like I am taking action, that we are trying to see that Isaac get's the best rehabilitation for his issues that we can find.

Both of us are so eager to start our lives together, but what we don't want is to get that confused with Isaac's desire to better himself in a different environment. We are not trying to use a "get out of jail free card." We are trying to design our lives in a way for optimum success. I met with his lawyer last week and he seemed slightly doubtful. He does not know the new Isaac, only the old Isaac. The man who cared little for other's feelings, and everything was about who or what he could use to his advantage. He is not that man anymore and he has not been that man for a very long time, but I understand his lawyer's hesitancy because that was the last image he had of Isaac. Now it is going to take some convincing to show a lawyer, a judge, a court that he has changed. I believe in him.

Doing Time On The Outside

This is a piece I wrote that was recently published with other local women's stories. They were all performed by a cast of ladies who did a great job. I cried like a baby! 

Doing Time on The Outside

 

As the metal gate slammed shut behind me definitively, I knew I had made my decision, I knew I could not turn back, that the natural procession of choices and consequences and life and love had all convened and that here I was in a maximum security prison walking toward an unknown fate. My mind wandered back to Isaac. Back to the man who started it all.

I met Isaac in the winter of 2009. I was immediately drawn to his caring soul, shy demeanor, and crooked mischievous grin. A story board, a kind of map wove up and down his body in the form of black and grey tattoos. I loved watching him push his sleeves up, skulls and clowns leering, the crying faces of women peeking out.  He awakened something deep within me that I had buried long ago. I fell in love with a heart, not a lifestyle, not an image, not a story. I fell in love with a broken man with an amazing heart, and a derelict attitude. I loved him like none other, and I grieved him like none other. Suddenly I snappedback to reality while waiting for the second set of bars to slide open in front of me.

I paused, took a breath, and raised my head. I would not enter this environment feeling ashamed, stupid, or belittled. My eyes searched until they found their home…in the face of my groom to be. Yes I was here in this prison, in this maze of cells, tombs, and sterile hallways, a place of yelling, and dull yellow jumpsuits, K9 units, and guards with rings of keys that clanked and echoed. Suspicious looks and stares of disgust lingered, but all I could see was you, Isaac. Your eyes, your face, our future, and suddenly a peace washed over me. My mind began to wander again to a little girl prancing around wearing a white bed sheet, all tucked into place to resemble a wedding gown. Paper flowers in her hair. As a teenager that same girl fantasized about beautiful venues, bright bouquets of flowers, family members lining the aisles. Today was my wedding day, today was my slightly altered fairy tale, and I told myself that I wasn’t letting that little girl’s dream die when I walked inside those gates, I was letting it live. In less than an hour I would be classified as a prison wife…and I was ok with that.  

​I took my first step towards my fiancé amongst the watchful eyes of inmates, visitors, guards and prison staff. I walked into the walls of this prison a 30 year old woman with a relatively normal life, yet a string of judgment always trailing her. I walked into that prison a woman madly in love with a man, a man who is incarcerated. I felt giddy, butterflies floating in my stomach just like any bride on her big day.  I would be lucky though, I would be walking out of this prison a free woman. I would leave in a state of great joy and in great sadness, and I would walk out with a new label in my life because I simply loved a man, a man who lost his way and found it in crime. Yes on Valentines day 2012 I became the wife of an inmate. I married my husband behind three layers of steel, bulletproof glass, and bars, inside the walls of a fortress. But I had to recognize that one of the happiest moments of my life was also one of piercing loss. I walked out of those gates past the disdainful faces of many with a smile on my face and void in my heart. I had to leave my new husband behind and he would proceed to go back to his 8ft by 10 ft cell with a hole in his heart as well. That night we would both lay down in separate beds crying ourselves to sleep, but feeling so grateful to have found a love that even prison could not break. My fairy tale of marriage, sprinkled with the notions of society and a woman’s want for the lavish of ceremony and celebration had become a prison wedding, and I was also ok with that. The ceremony was beautiful in my eyes, the grim green walls melting away to a place of safety and love. All I saw at moments were the eyes of my husband welling with tears. His eyes held me, almost in a state of protection from the despair that lurked all around us.  

We were married in a tiny glass room located within the visiting room. With inmates and their loved ones watching we said our vows, exchanged rings, and our first kiss as husband and wife. I was nervous throughout the entire ceremony, not because of getting married, but of breaking a prison rule. How sad I thought…Could I take his hand? How many inches must I stand away from him? How many seconds is too long to kiss?

There was an adjoining glass room to ours, reserved for inmates to meet with their lawyers. A single inmate sat inside waiting for his attorney. I didn’t notice him at first until his movements kept distracting my peripheral vision. I glanced behind my groom at this man. He sat one ear cocked towards the ceremony wiping the smallest of tear drops from his eyes. He stared straight ahead. In a place of hardness, of darkness of constant noise and chaos, I realized my wedding WAS important. It WAS a type of fairy tale.  Isaac and I had brought a piece of humanity to a place that lacked a soul.

Isaac and I had no reception, no honey moon, no mind blowing wedding night sex. No driving away in a car tied with soup cans as our family and friends waved us on with good wishes. Isaac’s skin did not feel the starch of a suit and tie and I did not wear white. I had a simple bunch of gerbera daisies glued together by my sister so they could pass through security.

When most think wedding they think catering, venue, dress, music, flowers, loved ones. Prison weddings are different. You think about whether your underwire bra will set off the metal detector? Is your dress precisely 2 inches below your knee? Will your simple bunch of flowers be seen as something that could be construed as contraband or a weapon? Will they cut the ceremony short because of an unforeseen lockdown?

But in the end, this wedding, this experience, this slipping from one category into another was indeed about celebration, about the beauty of peace amongst pain, about a strength of love that waits, that “does time on the outside.” While inmates serve sentences longer than their life spans, Isaac lives among them in his tiny cell waiting for 4 years to expire. Waiting for that long over due honey moon, that uninhibited kiss with his wife. I sit staring out windows lost in thought about a husband that I cannot touch. But this marriage, this wedding was perfect in our eyes. It was our new beginning. Due to its setting, it meant something different. What really happened was this: Isaac and I shared an experience of redemption. And when people ask me the details of my wedding, I speak up with pride as a woman and a wife, a prison wife whose lavish affair was marrying the warm soul of a man in the depths of a winter. I could not ask for more. Neither could that little girl with flowers in her hair.

Visitation and Exhaustion...And Some Love Sprinkled In

Soooo I drove the 6 hour round trip with Isaac's family yesterday to visit him. It was great to see him, but I am EXHAUSTED, like seriously exhausted. My back is killing me from being bent over all day in the car seat and for the first time I am considering telling Isaac I can only visit once a month. The trip every two weeks is expensive and it takes days for my body to recover I swear.That breaks my heart though.

Isaac was in good spirits, but tired from lack of sleep. Poor guy. He was fighting to keep his eyes open at times. He had a nice visit with his family and then him and I joked around and ate some food. I told him how something inside of me just tripled the love I have for him if that is even possible and that I knew we would be ok. I know he is the man for me, I have always known. I love him more than life itself. The world kind of begins and ends with that man, which scares me because the "what ifs" start and I wonder about how I could cope without him, but I am a strong woman, I would, it would just hurt like hell. Ok so why am I going in this direction? Just be happy I have to tell myself. Just be happy! Revel in your happiness and your love and the exquisite feeling of being loved and giving love. No time can be wasted. Drink up every drop EVEN while they are in prison, because love does not stop just because prison separates us. Love seeps in and out of those bars, weaves it's way through those sterile hallways and reaches it's destination!

Fears...and Moving?

Isaac about gave me a heart attack this past week. I did not hear from him for 5 days. No phone calls, no JPay emails, no letters. I was so worried. I called the prison on the 5th day and they said they were not on lock down. I called again asking if he had been moved, and the woman told me she could not give me any information and hung up on me. I was supposed to visit the next day, but I didn't feel comfortable driving the 6 hour roundtrip without even knowing if I could see him, so I cancelled the visit and I know it dissapointed his family who was supposed to come, but it could have been a waste of money. Well I am laying awake in bed and who calls at 11:45pm, but Isaac. I was so happy to hear his voice. They had in fact been on lock down since this past Thursday and had gotten off the day I called the prison.

We talked and joke and of course I cried because I had been scared, very scared that something could have happened. I know if something really bad had happened they would call me, but what if he got in trouble and had been thrown in the hole? Or in a minor fight? I had always prided myself on learning patience throughout this journey, but I don't know, I just had a bad feeling about this all! Well turns out he is ok and I am thankful for that. When we were joking around I got such a longing to have him right here with me, we would talk for hours and be silly and just mess around. It sounds like heaven on earth at the moment. It makes the waiting that much more difficult.

So on a random note, I have been tossing around the idea of moving in with my mother. This would only technically be for 3 months to save money to move to a different city. The town I live in now is too small and judgmental and is also too close to where Isaac grew up and got all his charges at. He knows too many people there that are not good for him. First let me say that I have lived in the same apartment going on 5 years and I feel attached to it. Also for the exception of a couple of months when I moved back home from NYC, I have not lived with my mother for close to 15 years. I left after high school for college and never came back until 5 years ago. Anyway, I see my feelings of independence as an adult going out the window, I see my mom and I fighting, I will miss my privacy, etc... but I think what it comes down to is sacrifice. If I want to relocate, I can't do it outright because I have no savings. I will have to stay with  my mom while I save up and I think I can live with that. I love my mom, she is a great person, we just sometimes want to rip each other's heads off! It is also just a little fear of the unknown. I mean Isaac and I will have to discuss where the best place to move to is. He is all for the move. He said he suggested it ages ago, which I must agree he did, but I was feeling different about it then. Now I am trying to keep my eyes on the prize because we are thinking of trying for a sentence modification at some point soon. Well I'm just going to think, think, think. I don't want to be one of those people who never takes action though, who let's fear drive them. I want to make moves.