My dad came down today for a visit and we were able to talk about some deep and tough stuff with each other. I've been having some hard times recently with being here. I feel like I've already learned what I came here to learn and now I just want to go home.
I know I'm not finished learning because there is always some way I can take in more wisdom. I would rather learn with family and friends nearby because I am tired of this experience.
The only thing that is really worth anything to me here is the school. The classes are a blessing., but even those I would be able to take outside prison. I feel surrounded by ignorant, stubborn guys who won't listen to reason or even the littlest things. School is the only place where I can have intelligent conversations, but even in that setting there are not too many people really want to learn to change their wrong thinking. School is just something for them to do.
I want to continue my life instead of living at a standstill. I also have some relationships I feel like I need to reconcile and I don't think much fixing can be done from my current position. I continue to pray and have faith foe release in God's timing.
(Note: This entry was originally written on 9/10/08.)
Man, I've got to get out of here. Every now and then I have days where the longing for the familiarity of friends and home is overwhelming. I feel like the kid that hid from Mom in the clothing rack while shopping and now can't seem to find even the hem of her dress to hold on to."Paging the real world. I am a lost boy without a way home."
Today the feeling began before I woke up. I had a dream about spending a normal day with C. and a couple of friends. We were doing all those things you take for granted when you are free: walking the campus, playing in the park, getting a bite to eat at that killer sandwich shop with the fashionably vegetarian offerings.
Waking up was a slap to the cerebrum - you are not free in your tiny white-walled existence shared with nine other men.
The feeling continued when a movie aired on TV that was a close replica of the relationship I shared with C. before I entered prison. Down to the quirks and dress of both the guy and girl characters, I was reminded of what is past.
I want to escape the colorless so I can be free to be me. I need my real peers, the one-maybe-two-steps-from-becoming-full-fledged-adult college crowd, to poke fun at my foibles and to motivate me to be more.
Around here I am treated as some kind of eccentric genius. I fit neither term.
