MyTimeToBlog
We're being quarantined for the weekend, thanks to another outbreak of Scabies. This again had us trapped in our housing unit, only this time being able to come out of our cells for recreation in the day room. I'm grateful, because being in a cell for a weekend was downright annoying.
I sat at a stainless-steel table, getting through my daily routine of reading, writing, and socializing with my crew. All were working out, eating, chatting with family on the phones, and playing card games. The weather finally broke, so I'm wearing a sweater.
These past three months, the high temperatures had us sweating in the sweltering heat. The relief of being able to say I'm cold is downright joyous, but I couldn't truly appreciate it because my thoughts were elsewhere.
Haneef began a rant on how parole-eligible men weren't being released. He read that 16 incarcerated men were granted parole in 2024. We're in Virginia with a population that reached 40,000, and with a parole populace of 3,000--and only 16 made parole. His rant fell on many ears, and the discussion of what rehabilitation meant. I groaned inwardly, thinking how we're fighting with our all, but it goes unnoticed. That had me dwelling on a movie called Widows. There was a scene where a man was surveilling a target, and while he was, he listened to this audio recording of a man in prison discussing how he had been 20 years without an institutional charge, but wasn't being released. Again, I groaned.
When you think about our struggles, we group ourselves in with each other; if he can't get it, I can't either. That took me into my thoughts as Chino began dancing to his Reggae playlist. He's dancing, and I'm... I'm grouping myself with others who didn't assist me, nor I, with their pursuit of freedom.
This new age prison population was mental health patients. I'm turned around, watching Joe Dirt snap out about getting out of the front door with a correction officer. He did this all the time, just so he could hustle something to get his pockets fat. He didn't think about prison as a cage, more so his living room, where he invited friends to help him get penitentiary rich. Shoot, this was his third prison term.
Right before me was Mike, who was back in prison for a second time. He played his games on his tablet all day, and always asked me to listen to the latest song he purchased from Jpay.
These were some of the men who proved to me that rehabilitation was an afterthought for them, as well as the prison system. I'm seeing this as a reminder of why 16 incarcerated men made it out of this misery. Can I get free...Yeah, I could.
At the table I'm at were books. I never grasped education as a priority early on. Shoot, when I was on Wallen Ridge State Prison (one of the two supermax prisons in VA), I signed up for a GED class just so I could get the $27.00 check a month; they wouldn't give me a job, so I lied to get into the class just for the money. Pathetic, but that was one of the hustles a 63-year-old man showed me for a quick come-up.
All those memories of living a wasted life came flooding back: "Tut, sign up for the computer program. They got porn DVDs we can watch." This was one of the wasted opportunities to better myself that I squandered.
Again, I groaned inwardly as Ty--a 60-plus-year-old man--sagged his shorts and sauntered over to a table to play Scrabble. He was incarcerated for 40 years and was loud, obnoxious, and disrespectful towards those in authority. This was another reminder of who I was around, so I grabbed my pen and began scribbling my thoughts upon the pages of my journal as I wrote the daily quote: "I can't let you give up."
That gave me pause as I recognized my thoughts: freedom. We all want it, but to what extremes would I go for it? I usually would say with everything I had, but I glanced up and saw Micky J.
He spent 42 years incarcerated, and basically hadn't done anything to get home. We spoke on what it's been like being inside a cell for such a long time, but when he articulated himself, it was like talking to a grown child who just learned to curse. I basically ceased my interactions with him and started thinking differently.
I said everything I had, but what I had in the beginning was a dictionary of words that cried for freedom, but couldn't describe what it meant. Small thinking developed me into a grown kid, that was why the results were always the same: empty gestures that nobody felt were authentic...myself included. That was why I had to discard this bag of falsities that I felt were correct to show.
That's why I had to educate myself and learn from others what not to do: sit around and gripe about the problem. Now, on a Saturday, I'm working out my problems one at a time. This way I could give all my focus to finding a solution. What I've come up with has me seeing I had hope in a hopeless situation.
What that meant was going within with the knowledge gained and growing myself beyond these bars of cold steel. How? Again, education, a mentor who came through these same hollow halls and found success, and making a commitment to show I'm remorseful for my prior actions, and living daily with a positive mindset that I can and will.
Prison can incubate the mind in two ways: growth or despair. It's always been the case, and sadly, these examples were all around me: those in despair with 30 to 50 years of incarceration under their belts. That scared me, but again, on a Saturday, I'm working on growing my mind and correcting the issues that most gave up on, because they believe they can't get free. I can and will.
The path is uncharted, but so were many others as men traversed this world in hopes of finding something great. I'm going forth with this belief that I can get through this with a singular thought: I can.
It's Saturday, August 2, 2025, and I'm at a table working on my plans. I'm not like anybody else, only me. The me that will walk out of prison.