Rusty Release.

Let me stumble through this first post-release entry please.  I'm not attacking this empty field with the same confidence I had 5 months ago.  I don't have all of my weapons at my disposal.  The thesaurus of my mind has rusted shut... I have some conditioning to undo before I can manhandle this flashing cursor (that seems to be begging for it) the way I like to.


My brain is mushy.

Mush Brain.


So, I'm out.  Out of jail, and it's a little strange, this free reality spools out like an end-of-sleep dream, because for a period of time that's all it was.  I couldn't allow myself to remember my life outside of that jail because it seemed so unreachable.  I have a little Shawshank thing happening, it's not bad enough to hang myself from the rafters, but there is some adjusting that needs to happen before I'm comfortable again.


I still hear that fucking P.A. system in my sleep... "Bongggg... if you're leaving at the 630 work and pass drop your ID off at the officer's station."  That thing goes off way more often than it really needs to.  I feel like I'm breaking rules when I put my feet up, when I walk out of my room, when I'm not wearing my shoes properly (that's a rule).  I spent so much time laying on my bunk staring at the bottom of light-blue steel bunk above me that I feel a little displaced as a free person.  There have been times over the last few days where I'll just walk into a room and stand, thoughtless and motionless, attending to nothing.

I wasn't even caged for all that long when the scope of my whole life is considered.  I was also very lucky to have landed in a county that offers a sentence reduction program in exchange for my work.  I was out of jail, phone in hand, 6 days a week.  Even with all of that, it was still heavy, stressful and humiliating.  No matter what you're in for or how long you're in, you're treated as something less than a full human being.  The only thing to do is fall in line and allow your blue uniform to blend as seamlessly as possible into the sea of other blue uniforms.  I do not blend well.

Leaving that place and never returning was the largest item on my short list of milestones associated with this personal horror show, and now I'm left feeling similar to the way I felt when I graduated from Iowa.  Welp... here I am... What next?  And How next?  Even Where next...  So many nexts.  I worked very hard in that unkempt Man-Zoo, everyday, to keep my focus directly on the "Right Nows."  The price of allowing the steps to take upon release to leave footprints in my mind was too high for me, and now, "What's Next" has become, "What's Now."  And I'm ill-prepared.

Real life is still real life, but at least it's life.  There is no life to be found in there, so I know I'm not in the wrong place if living is something I want to do.  There is far more hope and opportunity, even slogging in this reintegrational confusion, than there is fear.  I'm sure I'll find my way soon.

I have so much to say.  So many stories to tell.  So little ability to do it...

Am I being dramatic?  Fuck, I can't even tell.

I know I've been so overwhelmed with joy, off and on, since that morning that I've burst into tears several times.  Seeing my parents, my best friend, my dogs.  Realizing I don't have to go back there in the afternoon and "lift my genitals," for some guy to prove I'm not hiding contraband.  Eating food that is real, that I prepared.  I'm just overwhelmed by everything.  It's been a lot to process.

Thank you again to everyone for the support and I'm sorry I didn't get to all the letters.  It was just logistically impossible with the HUGE response and the roughly 800 hours of community service I completed.  I was on auto-pilot... but you're all welcome to come over for Chili, there will always be plenty of that.