My Place in This World

I sometimes feel that our trials and tribulations are things that prepare us for other things. And while they may in fact (for lack of a better word) suck, the experiences and lessons we take away from said trials move us to creation.

This being said, I find myself needing to create something different and new. I love to write and it is a great outlet here and I thank you all for your support. However, I feel the need to share with women that are in my shoes. Other women who have husbands in prison or have children whose fathers are in prison.

It is a long row to hoe, that is for sure, but it is hard for someone to really make someone understand unless thay have been there. I find this especially true for my family.

So I created a website. A social circle to help women in my position get the help they need, whether it be spiritual, mental, emotional, or financial. If you know of anyone who is in this position, please feel free to send them, we welcome all. If you would like to make a donation so that I can keep this site going and be able to give finacial assistance to those who need it, please do so on the site. And if you want to join, just to be a friendly ear for someone to talk to, please do that as well.

I will still be wrting here so don't miss me yet ;)

Come by and visit the site and let me know if you have any suggestions. Love ya girls!

http://prisonwithoutwalls.yolasite.com/

Glimpses, Love, and Forgiveness

Why? Why would you stay with him. That is a question I have been asked many times, though not always with words. People ask with their actions, with their looks, and with their minds. I don't know if they think it is impolite to ask and that is why they don't say the words out loud.

I want to tell them sometimes that it's none of their damn business. That this is my life and I make my own decisions. I want to just ignore their looks and thoughts of how I must be co-dependant and cannot walk away. I want to tell them that marriage is forever and that I believe in the vows that I took. But I won't. Because I have nothing to be defensive about. And so I will tell you all, my sisters here and around the world, exactly WHY it is that I stay.

The first night we met, we danced to Garth Brooks' "Unanswered Prayer". I remember asking him if he believed in unanswered prayer. He told me that he didn't believe in praying. Handsome and sexy as he was, I remember thinking that he had the saddest eyes I had ever seen, full of conflict and distrust, anger and rebellion.

You may think I set out to save him. And maybe there is a little truth to that. As rocky as our relationship started, we both fell hard and fast for eachother.

We had joys and sorrows, strengths and weaknesses. And just a few months shy of a year being married, we seperated for two weeks. We both sat on the couch, held eachother and cried together, not knowing how to make things work.

Shortly after we had gotten back together because we just could not stay apart, he started doing drugs. Therein we entered a hurricane of pain, disappointment, and near-defeat.

Growing up, he was never held accountable for anything he did wrong. Not that his mom didn't care, she was just working all the time, a single mom trying to raise 3 kids alone. As an adult, after being a Ranger in the Gulf War and a rodeo bullrider, he thought he was invincible. Superman.

Even Superman has his Kryptonite. My husbands was drugs. As a child, I always thought drugs were stupid. I didn't see the point in "losing yourself" in something that could kill you. Watching my husband smoke crack cocaine, made me hate them.

If you have never seen someone you love on drugs, it's like this...

Imagine a flower, bold and vibrant, full of color, strong in it's own right. One day, you forget to water it and it droops a little. The next day, it is again forgotten and the next and the next...

It doesn't take long till that flower is  a shriveled up shell of it's former self. What once was strong and beautiful is now drawn, wilted, and dying...if it is not already dead on the inside.

To watch the one you love die on the inside is like taking your own life.

At first, in my innocence, I thought I could fix him. If I yelled at him enough maybe he would see my anger and stop. It didn't. So then, I was sad and upset and hurt that he would do these things. So  icried and begged him not to do these things. He didn't stop.

I was dying inside. This man that I loved was no longer him. He was paranoid and angry, and pathetic. It made me sick to see the things he was doing to himself. I searched the house when he was gone or sleeping and found his drugs and pipes and I threw them away. I began to hide my money in my bra when I did eventually sleep. I learned everything i could about these evils and locked them into my memory bank. In and out of prison, him trying to make a change and me, trying to raise both a child and a husband.

And in between the drug induced hazes, in his moments of lucidity, I saw him. The man that I loved.

Being locked up and our only form of comminication being visits, which I could rarely afford or letters, which I scarcely had time or energy to write. But I tried. And we wrote and I asked him the questions he could not answer on the outside while he was using. And he answered. I sought counsel from pastors and psychologists. I learned to be stronger than I ever was before.

In these missives, back and forth, we maintained our marriage as best we could. We became friends. We learned to talk about everything and to keep no secrets.

My family and friends, didn't have a chance to know him well before he started using. His family has seen him fall too many times. And so it is I, the one who loves him unconditionally, the one who forgives his faults, and remembers who he really is, even when he cannot who will stay by his side. It is I who will pick him up and encourage his strengths. And it is I, who will not enable him to do drugs. Just ask him. He'll tell you how mean I am. I will stand up for him, but I will also stand up TO him.

My husband is bi-polar. In people that are bi-polar uppers such as cocaine and methamphetamine actually have a calming effect instead of a "high". Over 50% of undiagnosed bi-polar sufferers self medicate with drugs just to feel normal.

People rarely get things right the first time. The average person will go through rehab at least three times before they "get it right". We as a race (human) give up on people too easily.

So if there is someone in your life, who cannot seems to get things right, whether it is drugs or alcohol, anger, bi-polar or anything else...please do not just walk away. Do not give up on them because then they give up on themselves. Do not enable them, but love them. Give them hope, but not money. Praise their efforts, but not their downfalls. And remember, they will not change until they want to do it for themselves and most times they have to hit rock bottom and you have to let them.

Always keep in your heart though, that this sickness is not what defines them, it is not who they are.

Glimpses of the past and dreams of the future keep me sane, love keeps me strong, and forgiveness guides my heart.

Until These Tears Don't Have To Fall

I am sleeping, though not soundly. These days, I am in a state of consciousness that is half sleep due to sheer fatigue and half awake because of fear.

The fear is for my husband. Both afraid he will come home and fear that he will not.

I hear the window open and a thud. Then, nothing. I lay in the bed listening. I rise and go to find my husband, the man I love dearly, in a heap on the floor beneath the window. I check his breathing. Shallow, but it is there. I shake him awake and his eyes pop open and he looks into my eyes for a moment. As recognition dawns on him, he pulls me down on the floor beside him.

“Shh!! There are people out there” Sweat dots his upper lip. He is whispering as to not make his whereabouts known. It is surreal. Almost like playing cops and robbers when I was a kid. But this is no game.

“Honey, there is no one out there, please just lie down and go to sleep.” I sigh almost begging him.

“No, there are people after me. Can’t you see their flash lights? I can hear them talking.”

I oblige him and look at the window. I hear the song of the crickets. Nothing more. I see nothing but darkness. We live on a dirt road with only one neighbor. There is no one out there. After a 3 day drug binge, my husband is hallucinating.

Between exhaustion, lack of food, and the paranoia induced by crack cocaine, he is not in his right mind. Tears well up in my eyes and I blink them away because there is no time to cry. My husband’s life depends on me getting him to sleep.

“Come lay down on the bed under the covers. They won’t see you there.” I finally tell him.

After a little more arguing, he complies and lies down. I look at him. He is filthy. His feet are cracked and bleeding from walking for three days in flip flops. Skin is torn on his arms and legs from hiding in thickly wooded areas to avoid cops and other imagined enemies. He is gaunt and needs food, but not right now.

Worried about leaving him for even a second, I go down the hall to the bathroom and fetch a bowl of warm water, towels, and a wash cloth. No time for soap. Bringing my supplies to the bed, I sit beside him. Fever has set in. Tremors rack his body as he lies there, mumbling in his sleep. The tears try to come again; yet again I tamp them down impatiently, knowing that the luxury to sit and cry is one I cannot indulge in.

I dip the wash cloth in the water and wring it out. Quickly wiping the worst of the grime from his face, arms, and legs, I then look at his feet. Now the tears flow freely and I do not try to stop them. I move further down the bed to his feet and begin washing them, my tears mingling with the nearly black water.

I am reminded of Sunday school when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. How it spoke of his unconditional love for them. The words of my favorite hymn, in the times that I need the most strength, escape my lips as I wash and cry my pain away.

“I am weak but though art strong

Jesus keep me from all wrong

I’ll be satisfied as long

As I walk, let me walk, Close to Thee”

I finish washing the best that I can. I cover my husband, the man I promised to love through good times and bad, sickness and health. I lie down beside him and hold him, much like I would my children. His tremors finally subside and his sleep turns almost serene. I do not sleep. For when you are the watchman, you do not sleep.

And I wonder, not for the first time, how long it will be until these tears don’t have to fall. My husband stirs and rolls over to his side, wrapping his arms around me. Though I do not like him very much in this moment, I let him cling to me, knowing that he needs to hang on to something real.

In the morning light, he rises. He looks me in the eye and neither of us speaks. I turn to rise and he stops me, gently pulling me back down. He searches my eyes for forgiveness and I will not look at him.

“I’m sorry.” He says. I do not speak still. I will not remind him of what he cannot remember.

Hours later, I sit at my computer and I write. I write and I write. This is my release. And then to him, I show him what I’ve written, the words my mouth cannot speak.

Anticipation
Hours stretch into days
I've been waiting
I pray to God he'll see the light
Not looking forward to this fight
I'll get mad, he'll hang his head
and instead of leaving, I'll stay instead
(but) through these tears
I'll keep waiting
Through this pain
that I'll keep taking
Upon myself so maybe I'll see
A glimpse of the man he used to be
And I'll keep on waiting
through it all
Until these tears don't have to fall

Knowing strength

You never know what you really know until you are put to the test.

There are many things I never thought I would ever know about. Being the wife of an inmate is one of them.

You always dream as a child of what your future might hold. Of marriage and career and children. But you never imagine that one day, your husband would turn to drugs to fight his demons or that he would turn to stealing to support this self medication.

But the biggest thing I never knew is how strong I really was. I have a close friend who has asked me several times, "How do you do it? How do you stay so strong? How do you keep smiling in the midst of everything?"

I really don't know how to answer these questions. Being both mom and dad to our daughters never seemd like it was a choice I made, but one that was made for me. The hand I was dealt. Of course, some may argue that it was of my choosing since I decided to stay.

Some days I don't feel very strong. I would say my faith has kept me strong or at least given me the facade of being strong. But even my faith is shaky at best sometimes.

I would say my children make me strong. And they do give me the strength to persevere, yet...

I think of myself as a survivor. I have survived leukemia. I have survived childhood molestation. I have survived and thrived despite the fact that the cards are stacked against me.

I do not like victims. I do not have patience for people who blame everything that happens on someone or something else. I do not have pity for someone who cannot hold themselves accountable for their actions. And I.WILL.NOT. let anything, take my strength from me.

I don't think strength is being strong or "keeping your chin up". I think strength is courage under fire. Courage is not the lack of fear. It is looking fear in the eye and not backing down. It is not running. It is getting up everyday and just facing it. That's it. Nothing more.

So am I strong? I think so. I am strong on the fact that I make mistakes, but I am a good mother. I am strong in the fact that love is action and not words.  And I am strong in the fact that though my husband is not beside me right now, I know that love never fails.

So I will wait. And sometimes I will be sad and lonely. Sometimes, I will be frustrated and angry. Always, though I know that I am strong. I know that I can do things on my own. After all, I am a survivor. I am strong. And I know now, that I can do anything.

Diary of a Convict (In my husbands words)

Well, it's been a week since my visit with C and the girls and still no letter. I know it's the mailroom here more than anything. I know deep down I can talk to myself about it, but I still feel the emptiness it causes me. I know I need to be stronger! I know that C needs me to be strong for her however I can. She deserves for her husband to be someone she can lean on. In my heart, I know I can't be 100% of what she needs but I can still be there for her. I still have the ability to give her something and show her how much I love her. I can still show her how important she is to me and how far I'll go to show her. So I'll try to be patient and not expect more than just what is. Does that make sense? I just try to be happy with what is and not trying to make more than that. Anyway, I'm ok day to day. I do feel that the days tend to bleed together at times, but I refuse to allow my life to pass by me like that. I want each day to matter somehow. I don't want to look back 20 years from now and only see a blackhole where these years are. That to me would be a waste. And in my past, I elected not to feel. Now I refuse to be numb! I want to feel the world around me. I am not afraid to shed a tear for loss, but all I'm also going to  be a man enough to hold my head up as I go through life. For better or worse!

Prison Without Walls

My husband has been in and out of prison for many years, fighting a drug addiction. I think, perhaps, I will paint you a picture of what a prison visitation is like, for those who don't know.

You arrive at the prison and a guard checks your vehicle for drugs, alchohol, and firearms. You then go to the designated area and wait in line to get checked in, where you undergo a body search.They like to make you feel like you are a convict as well. You then wait again to be able to go inside a room filled with tables and chairs and wait for them to bring your loved one into visit. You go into this room, they lock the door behind you, and wait some more.He/she comes in, you get one kiss and a hug and you get a 2 hour visit. You can hold hands across the table but you cannot sit beside them. You have that 2 hour time period in a sweltring room filled with other convicts, their families, children, etc. It's not a environment condusive to closeness.

The only other communication you have is through letters. And that is possibly one of the most important ways to keep your relationship alive. And you have to. It's very easy to get wrapped up in the outside world and lose that connection. Waiting is hard. That is reality. i cannot emphasize enough the importance of communication and letter writing. Put yourself in their shoes and imagine if the only thing you had to look forward to was a letter from home. you can bet if you are missing them, they are missing you more.

i look at it like this. Your husband (son, brother, etc) is fighting a war...whether it be drug addiction, a mental condition, anger, or any number of things. Something he/she did put them there and they can either fight it and win or let it defeat them.

I will talk about all these topics in length and many more. If you have any questions or topic suggestions, please do not hesitate to write.