“I don’t have any family left,
but I would love to create
a new family of my choosing
that will never leave me
or judge me for my past mistakes.”
I lived in LA for a while and listened to the Ear Hustle podcast. I have been putting off writing this story because we are supposed to help outsiders understand us and see us as humans instead of just criminals. That is where the problem lies for me because, most of the time, I don’t feel human. It’s hard to feel that way when your every move is chosen for you. I’ve been locked up for a long time, and I’ll be here for nine more years, but I feel like I have not lost the majority of my humanity like some of the others. I dream of mainly nights spent listening to the rain fall on the roof, the smell of rain on the grass coming in the window while I lay peacefully in bed, and snow falling outside while I sit in front of a fire with a loved one.
I don’t have any family left, but I would love to create a new family of my choosing that will never leave me or judge me for my past mistakes. I have a few hopes and dreams that I dwell on that get me through the hard times and the sleepless nights. I walk the tightrope here, trying my best to change the person that I was and slowly turn into the person I would like to be. Is it possible to walk the streets of a world that I know is no longer the same world that I knew so many years before. A world that allows strangers to know everything about us, both good and bad? I hope that someday, I will reach a point where people will no longer judge me and will love me for who I am, not who I was.
My father told me when I was a young child that no one other than him and my mother would love me. For some reason, I believed him, and I wonder if it’s true even today. I can say this much good about being here. This place saved my life and gave my children a better chance at life. This place also showed me that I am through with this life, though with jail, I just want to be normal, to live a normal life, to just be human.
