by Band Back Together | Jan 18, 2019 | Coping With Divorce, Divorce, Family, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Homelessness, Loss, Pet Loss |
It’s Mother’s Day and I’ve spend most of the day in tears. I ‘d been looking forward to it; even had some cool plans for spending the day with my daughters. Those plans went sideways shortly after breakfast.
I left my husband this week, a planned separation which took several months to execute thanks to our housing situation. As far as our daughters are concerned though, we’re still a team working together to make sure they’re happy and healthy. This week we’ve been ultra-focused on our daughters and the new adjustments.
With all our attention on our children, we didn’t pay much attention to the other members of our household.
Our pets.
When I got home from work on Thursday, I realized one of the dogs hadn’t eaten her breakfast. Not unusual, sometimes she leaves her food until late, so I wasn’t concerned. Friday night, she still hadn’t eaten. This time, I brought the black dog into the light in the kitchen, and took a good look at her. She was gaunt, ribs and spine sticking out alarmingly.
She clearly hadn’t eaten in days.
I called my ex and we agreed to flavor up her food with broth to get her to eat. We assumed it was stress from the separation. I sat, hand feeding the dog until she finally ate her food. Same deal on Saturday and again this morning. The gauntness was less pronounced, but I noticed other symptoms: a little bloating, weakness in one leg.
This morning, my ex came to get the girls for church. As he was petting her neck, he found it. A golf-ball sized lump hiding under her fur. Another closer to the other shoulder.
He took the girls to church while I took the dog to the vet. The emergency vet gave me her early findings. My 9-year old lab has Lymphatic Carcinoma. Cancer. X-rays indicate that it may have already spread to her organs, and possibly bones as well.
Some of you will read this and know the pain and horror I felt. Others, not so much.
It may just be the dog, but it’s my dog, one we raised (along with her litter-mate) as a rescue puppy. A pet who loves me unconditionally, knows when I’m sad and has comforted me upon many occasions. Knowing that I couldn’t put her through chemo brought me to tears.
If it really is cancer, the right, most humane decision is to put her down before she begins to suffer too much.
This cancer diagnosis capped the end of an incredibly horrible week.
A week which included leaving my husband and walking away from my daughters for the first time with the new custody sharing schedule. I kept telling myself it would be just a few days, just like a business trip. It wasn’t though. Being separated from them felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest.
A week where the bank finally approved our short sale, but gave us a short 30-day deadline to close escrow. A week that saw a solid, approved plan to move into a rental home go awry as the owners of the rental we’re moving into reneged on the deal at the last minute.
A week that ended with learning my daughters and I would be homeless come the 31st.
Ironically, the owners of the rental reneged because we had one too many dogs. A massive wave of guilt washed over me as I wondered if maybe this would allow the deal to go through.
I think the dog knows what’s coming. She’s been rather chipper since we got home from the vet. It’s prompting my 6-year old to try to convince me that the hard lump on her throat is smaller than before so that maybe she doesn’t have to die tomorrow. I’m in one of those horrible waiting periods where I want to convince myself that it’s just a bad infection, one which we can treat with antibiotics and TLC.
Maybe our regular vet will disagree and give us a different diagnosis. But, we have to be prepared for the worst.
Oh, my pretty puppy.
I am going to miss you.
by Band Back Together | Jan 16, 2019 | A Letter I Can't Send, Emotional Abuse, Family, Feelings, Psychological Manipulation, Trauma |
My views regarding my mother have changed in recent years.
Presently, she is someone who exists as part of a story in my life, catalyzing a significant examination of myself and those who surround me.
I often contemplate whether that was her purpose, but intertwined in those thoughts; there is guilt.
Parents make sacrifices for their children, and perhaps hers was the loss of our relationship, forcing me to embark on a new path. However, I don’t think she’ll ever be cognizant of that.
I have fond memories of her, times when she was a picturesque, doting mother, ferrying my friends and me to practice, taking us to the mall, and covering for me when I exceeded my curfew.
Those untainted recollections haunt me because I’ve realized that for every good deed, there was a price tag. The cost was never evident, as though you had found a one of a kind item at the store. You stand alone in the aisle, puzzled while turning the object over and back again in an attempt to locate that small, sticky, square sliver of paper that gives something its value.
You approach the register, convincing yourself it isn’t a lavish novelty—until the cashier regrettably informs you that the item exceeds your price range. After an internal battle, you purchase it anyway because you falsely believe that you need it.
That’s how it was with her.
She’d give, I’d take, and I would later have buyer’s remorse. I felt liable during those exchanges on many occasions, but they’ve taught me that I shouldn’t give more than I’m willing to lose–whether that be time, money, or respect. I did and said things throughout our strained relationship that weren’t fair, correct, or appropriate. There were times my behavior was unquestionably harsh.
In other moments, I yelled too much, was self-absorbed, and at times manipulative. Even as a child, I innately sensed that she was not capable of truly loving anyone. Her affections were an unmarked, dead-end road; I never knew where the pavement faded into the dirt until I found myself in the mud. She tirelessly helped people (and probably still does), but would then complain when her efforts didn’t garner adequate appreciation or her deeds weren’t reciprocated.
Through watching her perform this soliloquy of martyrdom and innumerable encore performances, I uncovered another meaningful piece of knowledge: If you’re giving to fill a void within yourself, stop giving and fix yourself because no one else will. To me, that is her downfall—she never fixed herself. Perhaps she didn’t know how—or was unable to recognize that she needed mending. It was always easier for her to blame her short-comings on others.
Usually, it was my dad, the man who worked seven days every week to provide for his family and allow her to do as she pleased. He was flawed, but not any more than the rest of us tend to be. My dad had a temper, was overly strict, and could be perceived as controlling at times, but he expressed an abundant amount of love and dedication to his family.
Yet somehow, my mother always found a reason to make him not good enough for her, or for us. She would shout from the proverbial rooftops to whatever audience was present: family, church people, or her friends—it didn’t matter. If they had ears and minute of time, she would begin Act I of her tragic play.
Her behavior reminded me of the game “Telephone” in elementary school.
The story at the end was never the story at the beginning, but no one was able to decipher what that was because true to her victim mentality, “She would never say that!” And so it went throughout my teenage years, her speaking half-truths, my dad getting mad, and her tear-soaked, half-hearted apologies.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I’ve surmised that’s where my lesson on people began—with those years of trusting, then not, and the gray area twisted between the confusion. It’s strange to look back on it now, coldly removed from it, emotionless. Or perhaps it’s still anger; I’m not sure. I vividly recall frequent conversations with my dad and his constant reminders to, “Not be like your mom.”
At that point in time, I always thought he meant weak because that’s how I perceived her: sad, depressed, and angry. She attended a private masquerade, a façade tuned so finely that she is still unaware that she’s wandering through a false reality. During those times, I didn’t know that life was preparing me for something I would never see approaching—the Trojan horse of life’s fuckery right in front of me. I was oblivious to the depth of her wounds and subsequent actions, until one day I could no longer deny the existence of her illness.
For many people, the term “mother” is synonymous with love, compassion, and devotion. An upstanding matriarch fiercely defends her children from harm and zealously supports their endeavors. I have spent countless nights awake thinking about the perfect incarnation of a mom, and I’ve concluded that my mother will never embody those characteristics. The greatest, albeit most difficult thing about life, is that it gives everything you need to know if you pause momentarily, pay attention, and don’t allow your ego to get the best of you.
If you’re repeatedly finding yourself in the same situation, it’s because you haven’t mastered the lesson those particular circumstances are supposed to teach you, or maybe you have, and you’re too stubborn or stupid to recognize them. I fell into the latter category because that’s just who I was then, optimistic and dumb enough to believe I could right any wrong. Writing that now is ridiculous, but that’s how it started—the relationship with a price tag so high, it almost destroyed my credit, and me.
He was charismatic.
Funny.
Handsome.
He said all of the right things at exactly the right time. Looking back, I guess he had to, or someone would peel back the thin layers around his dysfunction and see a hollow vessel, devoid of empathy or compassion unless it was for selfish gain.
My mother, however, adored him. She thought he was fantastic. The words of praise for him gushed from her mouth like a broken faucet. She insisted he was perfect for me.
I initially agreed until I saw through the shroud to what was underneath. It was like my internal GPS had lost signal on life’s journey and now it was too late to turn back. The scenery was beautiful at times. There were days filled with sunshine, laughter, and hope. Those times were my favorite because most days were dark and tumultuous. It seemed as though I was trying to outrun the rain, but I never knew when lightning would strike. The storm always seemed to clear at the exact moment that I was ready to relocate to a better climate.
And of course, there was my mother, clearing wreckage, and negotiating an insurance policy—or so I thought.
What I failed to realize is that insurance agents love disasters. Disasters wreak havoc and chaos while convincing policyholders that they require more insurance so that they are better prepared for the next catastrophe. I purchased an abundance of insurance from my mother. I talked and confided in her, while she manipulated the weather to her liking. In return, the weather repaid the debt by providing her with a temperate climate.
From my mother’s perspective, it was a fair exchange. She was never one to forgo a “diamond of a deal.” She received the attention and adoration she was so desperately seeking, and he received another layer of protection. Together, they were a perfect storm and were moving toward the coast at an alarming rate.
He and I found ourselves at the beach on that road trip from hell. By that point, I was preparing to change routes and terminate my insurance because I could no longer afford the premium; however, the best-laid plans always go awry when the atmosphere becomes unstable.
That day began calmly and seemingly beautiful, but the bright sunlight obscured the horizon as it beamed through the car windows that morning. We were exploring on that trip. Laughter and conversation filled the air like particles of pollen—invisible and damaging. I thought that maybe, just maybe, the sky was going to remain clear. If I only I hoped enough, had enough insurance, I falsely believed everything would be ok.
I was absolutely wrong.
He—the weather, became erratic and violent; I was stranded in the current, drowning while trapped in a car until I suddenly saw the eye of the hurricane approaching. Those few moments of relief granted me the clarity to see daylight. I suddenly became aware that I couldn’t regulate the weather, but I could control my reaction to it. There was an open road, but it had been hidden by the debris from the frequent storms.
That day I began driving.
I drove away from the downpours, evaded the lightning strikes, and put miles between the constant uncertainty of whether I had purchased enough insurance. When I called my mother, the insurance agent to discontinue my policy, she didn’t answer. She wasn’t available that night or the next day. She was too busy attempting to manage the self-made disaster that she didn’t care about me—her daughter. She turned away the child she had known for 32 years. She abandoned me, the daughter that she was supposed to unfailingly love and support.
I don’t know what he promised her exactly, but whatever it was, it was enough for them both to attempt to pursue me down that new, secret road I had discovered. They attempted to detour my journey through phone calls, texts, and at times, unnerving threats. I kept driving farther and farther away. She revived the soliloquy that had served her well and performed it for a multitude of audiences. The new version had added a few additional scenes, and they served to convey how terrible I was. She was heartbroken that her child could just walk away from her. It was then, that my dad’s words from over a decade ago reverberated in my mind, “Don’t be like your mom.” The statement had been a clear warning that I was unable to comprehend at the time because I didn’t understand that she was mentally ill. I was too naïve to fully perceive the environment that tarnished my childhood and too self-centered to evaluate my contribution.
She and I were and always will remain different people. She will forever be the insurance agent feeding and creating disasters for her own personal gain. I hope that someday her catastrophic business will close and she will have placed a vacant sign in the window. Although, I think the absence of orchestrating calamities would force introspection, and the disasters we harbor on the inside are usually far worse than those we create. My lessons in this life are far from over, and I hope that they’re never complete because if I stop learning, I cease to evolve into a better person. The chapter about my mother has been painful and dangerous, yet exceedingly valuable.
I’m grateful for the destruction and nearly being swept away because I changed routes. I began a migration to a new destination that I plotted and chose on my own. My mother and I will forever be traveling in opposite directions, but we were at the same starting point for a brief time. She may never fully grasp the reason or the outcome of our sudden departure in life, but I hope that one day her course becomes calm and clear instead of winding and uncertain.
Despite the pain she has caused, she unknowingly and unwillingly sacrificed her happiness for her child’s—and that’s the worst punishment of all.
by Band Back Together | Jan 12, 2019 | Divorce, Family, Heartbreak, Parenting |
I have so many different stories I want/need to share with The Band, it is hard for me to sit down and write just one. I think I have one that needs to come out now before I explode, though.
In another life, I was married to my high school sweetheart. I was an Army wife and a stay-at-home mom, and I think I was pretty damn good at it. I thought things were perfect. Sure, things could have been better, but the grass is always greener, right?
My husband left for Iraq before our 3 kids were even in school. He was gone for 2 years. A lifetime happened in those years he was away. We grew as a family. He came home expecting us to be the same, and we weren’t. He came home from Iraq and was expected to be a family man, father, husband again after being a bachelor of sorts while he was gone. Things happened; we divorced. It is still hard for me to accept. He was my world! I’m moving and trying to get past it, though.
I do pretty well until he calls and says things like “I love you,” “I miss you,” “I want us again.” I try really, really hard not to, but sometimes I fold. I do love him, miss him. This last time though, I told him NO. Not until you are no longer with your girlfriend. Not until we go to counseling as a family, a couple, and you alone. I also told him that I want more than just to be with him: I want my kids to have their DAD. They deserve that. I told him taking them for a couple hours every couple months and canceling on them 9 times out of 10 is not all right. I am NOT covering for him anymore. He agreed. Promised to take the kids 3 times now.
And guess what? He has canceled every. single. time. I have been wiping tears and hugging hurt little people for 2 weeks now. He doesn’t get it. He always says “sorry, something came up.” I tell him “take them with you,” and his response is “I can’t afford it.” WHAT! I am raising our children with NO help from you! Nothing. Okay, I just started getting child support again, but I am not talking about the money; I mean emotionally, physically. They just want to be with you. They don’t care if you sit on the couch or in the car. They would LOVE to just be near you. Believe me.
I am so tired of covering for him. I can’t handle the questions: “Am I not good enough for Daddy?” “Why am I not special enough?” “Do I have to change so he will love me?”
How do I answer those? I don’t think my hugs and answers are enough anymore. I think my kids, my little hearts, are starting to think I am just blowing smoke.
Help me, The Band. How do I fix their hurt?
by Band Back Together | Jan 10, 2019 | Coping With A Dysfunctional Family, Family, Mental Health, Pediatric Mental Illness |
This weekend will kick-off further pictorial evidence of just how perfect my family is.
Click- Tonight Prince, the ten-year old, will have another baseball game where he is sure to steal home and score an imperative run to keep up the team’s winning streak and their first place position in the league.
Click- Tomorrow my husband will MC the antique car show that the local board of elected officials I sit on is hosting, while I hand out plaques to the runners of the 5k who donated money to the Disaster Victims in the next state.
Click- Sunday will be my husband’s birthday and Mother’s Day.
Click – Wednesday my oldest, my only daughter, will turn twenty-two.
Click- Thursday is Award’s Day at Prince’s elementary school, where he will no doubt again receive the school’s “Medal of Good Conduct Award,” and the coveted “Leadership Award,” since he is clearly the perfect child.
Click- Friday my oldest will graduate from University with her 3rd degree. Did I mention she has been to Congress and the United Nations?
We should probably dress in white shirts and head to the beach and find some grass and have pictures taken in the breeze. I mean, we are so very perfect, aren’t we?
I don’t understand why I haven’t written a book on how to be the perfect mother of perfect children. I should TOTALLY be on the cover of Perfect Magazine and stuff. GEEZ.
Oh wait.
I forgot.
You know the way people don’t want to bring up cancer? Or say the name of a child that has passed away? The way “if we don’t talk about it, it won’t hurt as much.”
Bullshit.
I have another child, “My Dude.” He is nineteen years old. I love him. I don’t call him “My Dude,” because it sounds cool, I do this because I hope one day he will be able to apply for a job and his future employers won’t google him and see the things I have written about his struggles; my shitty job raising him.
He is from me. He is mine. He is just as much as the other two are, and I WILL NOT be taking a family freaking portrait until he is in it. I don’t care if he’s wearing a tin foil hat in that portrait; we will wear matching tin foil hats, dammit.
My Dude was missing for a bit and yesterday on my “humor blog,” I lost my mind. I posted about my mental breakdown. The lovelies from BB2G came flying in and offered to let me vent here.
In addition to a kazillion other people on the internet who sent me virtual hugs and pulled me from the mental pool of snot and self pity and fear, I wanted to personally thank you.
I am not a strong mom. I am just a mom. A screwed-up, flying-by-the-seat-of-my-probably-on backwards-who-knows-thong. Second guessing every move but acting damn sure of myself in front of the shorter people. Arguing with the hired help (The Doctors). Trying to help My Dude battle the demons only he can see. So when you think I am strong, remember I freak out 1 day out of 365.
He and others with mental illness live with it, 24/7, 365.
I cannot imagine that hell.
So to every mother who feels judged, feels like a failure, who has a kid that is overstimulated and screaming and kicking, who is glared at by strangers, sitting in a car line, wanting to give up or just to run away, I need you to know this. Please take it to heart.
When you look out of the window and see that perfect family with the perfect kids and the perfect house; the family that looks like they just stepped out of the magazine; they are just as broken and off-balance as the rest of us. We are all broken beings surviving the best we can. It really is all we can do.
No matter what your battle, please remember you are not alone.
xo,
PEACH OUT
by Band Back Together | Jan 7, 2019 | Anger, Emotional Boundaries, Emotional Boundaries, Estrangement, Family, Forgiveness, Incarceration, Loved One in Prison, Loving An Addict, Things That Are Bullshit |
He is my “brother.”
Or, to put it more aptly, my “street brother.”
Even more accurately, he was my drug dealer. When my then-fiance went to jail, he took care of me by making me his full-time driver. Shortly before my man “B” went in, our dealer “J” began referring to me as his “sister.” He had quite a few “sisters” surrounding him – none related by blood. One of the first times J and I were alone together (ever), I told him that if he wanted me to be his sister, and wanted me to consider him family, I’d take that seriously; it would be a big deal to me.
He said he understood and agreed.
B was arrested within a few days of that conversation. J was my first call. He told me to come over. At the time, I still had a drivers’ license and a legal vehicle with insurance. He kept me by his side pretty much 24/7 for the next 6 days.
Unfortunately, 6 days later, we were arrested together, in that vehicle. He was absconding from his probation officer and was charged with Intent to Distribute (with Priors) among other things. I was charged with DUI and possession – since it was my first arrest in this state (and my prior out-of-state record had been expunged), I was released after being booked in. He and I sat together in booking before he was dressed out. That was the last time I saw his face. My brother. 10 1/2 months it was until I saw him again.
He hadn’t written down my number when he was booked in. Having done as much county time as he had, with no one writing to him or paying for phone calls from him, he hadn’t seen the point. I promised to write him a letter when I got home that night including my phone number. When the phone rang 5 or 6 days later and the automated voice announced his name, I grinned and accepted the call immediately. I could hear the tentativeness in his voice when I answered. He hadn’t expected me to pick up.
Two or three weeks later, J was transported to The Point, which is the nickname for Utah State Prison’s main campus – so called because it’s location is directly across I-15 from “The Point of the Mountain”, which is the dividing line between our two most populated counties – Salt Lake County (home of Salt Lake City) and Utah County (home of BYU).
I alternated letters, keeping greeting cards and stationary and stamps in my purse at all times. When I finished a letter to B, I began one to J and vice-versa. B remained in County Jail and I spoke to him often, though the calls were expensive and the cost became prohibitive. I didn’t hear from J for almost 2 months.
Utah Department of Corrections has a You Tube Channel with a series of orientation videos for Friends and Family. I watched them all.
J’s first stop was “R&O” – basically Intake. While in R&O, he was not given an opportunity to contact the outside world and had almost zero commissary privileges. For a first-time inmate, R&O typically is 4-6 weeks while the staff evaluates the inmate’s compliancy, ability to understand and follow rules, evaluates their educational and programming needs and determines their long-term housing assignment.
The Point has different areas for drug offenders vs. gang members vs. violent criminals etc. Female inmates spend far less time in R&O typically as they only have one housing area for women. The other option available to inmates is to “County-Out”. Basically, the Utah Prison system is over-crowded and so several of the smaller counties with available jail space house prison inmates on a contract. Many inmates prefer staying in a County environment (whether that’s a housing preference or they prefer fewer cellmates or they like the availability of programs like “Getting Out” which is a communication option at some counties that is unavailable at the Point). Other inmates prefer staying in the main prison (or it’s sister facility in Gunnison) – commissary and phone calls being cheaper and the guarantee of jobs and/or programs to fill the hours.
After R&O, J went to Promontory aka The Conquest Program, which is the drug treatment program inside Utah State Prison for men (Women have a version called Excel). While in Conquest, he did not have the ability to have a paid job (inmate labor is underpaid – between 65 cents and $1.75 an hour – for anything from working in the kitchen, organizing and distributing commissary orders, working in the cafe open to the public, administrative jobs, custodial work, groundskeeping, maintenance) because of the nature of the Program, but he did become a Trustee (which is a position of authority within the housing section including responsibility for keeping the Unit clean, distributing meals) and in addition to nearly completing the program, he managed to earn his High School Diploma.
In Utah, when a person is sentenced to Prison, the trial court judge does not have the authority to limit or govern the length of the prison stay. A third-degree felony carries a maximum penalty of 0-5 years in prison. A second-degree = 1-15 years, a 1st degree = 5 years – Life and then there’s the “Super-First” which is, I believe either 15 or 25 years to life. Once a person is convicted and in prison, a different agency – The Board of Pardons and Parole (BOP), assumes jurisdiction over the inmate.
The BOP sets a hearing date for each inmate based upon his/her convictions – a 3rd degree felon will see the Board after 3 months (+/- depending on backlog); a 2nd degree, after 6 months and a 1st degree after 18 months (It’s unclear to me whether persons convicted of a “Super First” ever have the option to parole. J’s hearing was held approximately 7 months after he arrived at The Point. A few weeks after the formal hearing, the Board renders its decision – usually including a potential release date.
Here’s the thing: there’s a TON of bullshit rules about prison.
The first one I learned: inmates cannot have pictures of themselves. My first letter to J got returned because I enclosed a bunch of pics of him and me, him and his girl, etc. Just sent back. Letter too.
Next: persons on probation cannot visit the prison – in fact, if you have a misdemeanor conviction within the last 7 years, you cannot visit the prison (except to see family members).
“Family” is strictly defined. To be approved to visit someone you claim as family, included with your visiting application must be documentation of the relationship (i.e. a marriage license, both birth certificates showing a parent in common). So much for visiting my “brother.”
Putting money on an inmates books (so they can order items from the commissary for themselves) comes with substantial fees (about $6 added to whatever amount you’re giving them).
Phone calls are WAY cheaper from the prison than from the jail (depending on the jail). When B called, I was charged 29 cents a minute when I funded a prepaid account (each time I added funds to the account, there was a $3 surcharge). When J called, it was 10 cents a minute (also with a surcharge but still.)
J saw the Board after about 7 months and his tentative release date was set for two months later – March 28. Here’s the thing about that: because he would be paroling (as opposed to “term-ing” or terminating), Adult Probation & Parole had to pre-approve any address he wanted to reside at. This meant a parole officer would have to call and verify that J could stay there and perform a check of the place (to ensure it met parole requirements – no alcohol or firearms on the property) before his release could be confirmed.
An inmate without an address to go to has to wait an additional 6-12 weeks for a bed to open up at one of the halfway houses before being released.
Here’s the other thing:
Being a person willing to receive letters/calls from inmates immediately subjects you to A TON of requests.
Since J went up, I have written to several other friends who were sent up to prison as well.
Universally, they all want you to do something for them (and often for their friends as well). J had me send texts and make calls to his buddies’ wives and/or girlfriends who couldn’t afford to take calls, write to other buddies who had no one writing to them, put money on his books if I could. Another friend of mine, a woman, beginning her third stint at the Point, included messages from her friends for me to forward, requested magazine subscriptions, requested that I send blank greeting cards and silver rings from WalMart that she could sell to her fellow inmates… and yet another friend (without asking me first) enclosed a letter from his buddy to his buddy’s girl for me to forward. J was the only one whose requests I did my best on.
But healthy boundaries are TANTAMOUNT when you have a locked-up loved one.
Of course, when J received his March 28 tentative release date, his immediate request was for me to find him a place to go. I was on probation by then (making me ineligible), plus I was homeless and living in a shelter (a very comfortable shelter but not one I could receive him to) at the time. He submitted the address of his mother’s trailer and asked me to call her and tell her to please hide the beer and the gun so AP&P would approve the address and could he please stay there etc etc.
Did I mention I hadn’t ever met his mother?
I called.
Her first question: “Well, couldn’t he stay with you guys?”
She told the parole officer when he called that there was beer and a gun at the trailer so that option was gone.
J called me, despondent, asking me to try to find someone.
I tried.
Finally, I asked my probation officer for sober living properties in the area that might help. He referred me to a place. I submitted J’s application online myself (he dictated the answers to me on a phone call). I committed to paying $500 before his release to pay his first two weeks’ rent and the application fee. I put up with bullshit flirting from the Program Director.
But I secured the address, submitted it to AP&P and got it approved.
I did.
The street sister.
Here’s the other thing about inmates:
You get a lot of promises about what they will do once they’re out.
Pay you back.
Make it up to you.
Change their Ways.
Etc.
J promised me a lot of shit.
He was released March 28. The Program Director picked him up from the prison and (despite some crazy drama culminating in my emailing the dude’s boss) B & I were allowed to go to the Sober Living and see J the day he got out. An ex-girlfriend of his gave us a ride up there. She was clearly wanting/expecting to be the center of J’s attention. She turned a little green when I was.
J went through his property bags that day. His prison-issued Bible, his court papers, the one letter he had received from the ex-girlfriend, the one from another girl and the three foot-high stacks of cards and letters from me.
I’m still proud of the way I held my brother down while he was away. I’m proud of him for staying sober since the day he and I got arrested almost 18 months ago. Better than I’ve done.
But I’m supremely disappointed in him.
He and I don’t talk anymore. He prefers to help out buddies who use him and his goodwill – even though they are still using drugs. Buddies who jeopardize his parole status for their own reasons. The girlfriend who told the cops the drugs in my car at our arrest were his – then lied to everyone on the streets about he and I for months, never wrote to him or anything, cheated on him, but when she lost her kids a couple of weeks ago (due to continuing to get high on heroin after a 90 day inpatient program), sitting with her was more important than trying to help me through a hospitalization.
It hurts to admit, but the fact is that people in prison are different than the people they were before or return to being after their incarceration. I loved my brother in prison. I will always love him in so many ways. But I don’t like him out here. And I can’t allow myself to be used by him anymore.
I have ended all contact with incarcerated persons except my now-husband, B, (who is back in county again *sigh*) and I have made an exception for his best friend. I have changed my phone number. I have blocked almost everyone on facebook. J isn’t blocked, yet. I did “Snooze” him for 30 days. it was too painful seeing his comments to lowlifes and dumbasses I know to be still hustling.
The last post of his I saw was that his PO has told him that if he continues to do well he will terminate parole successfully at the end of April.
Well done, Bro. Proud of you. Wish I didn’t know for a fact that you could have gone back to prison at least twice for breaking the terms of your parole. Not getting caught isn’t exactly what you should be striving for here.
Wish I had a way to show you how much danger I can see you’re in.
I wish prison weren’t a revolving door.
And even if you manage not to go back in the next 5 months +/-, I wish I could be convinced that you understood what REAL priorities are, what REAL friendship should be, what REAL family does for each other.
by Band Back Together | Dec 26, 2018 | Family |
It’s only a matter of time before it happens.
It might be in a tweet.
Or an email to one of the kids’ teachers.
Or at the end of a post.
Or in a comment on another writer’s blog.
Or in a memo to parents.
Or in a letter note to the pastor
Most likely it will be in a text.
Yeah, that’s the most likely, in a text, and without appropriate relational context, like to a parent of a kid spending the night over with one of mine.
It’s really a more a question of when, not if.
Cuz I’m the mother who already accidentally hit Reply All instead of Reply and thanked The Husband, “For the most sweet and gentle of kisses,” to all the parents in The Boy’s then third-grade class.
And I’m the mother who drove to the wrong soccer field twice in the same week.
I’m also the mom who misquotes her own children’s birth dates at the doctors office.
So, now that I have adopted the “xoxo” as part of my email closing to intimates, it’s simply a matter of time.
In order to save time, may I preemptively say:
xoxo to the kids’ principal.
xoxo to the lawn care service that sent us a job quote.
xoxo to the mom who wrote for help with the fencing car pool.
xoxo to the volunteer coordinator.
xoxo to the grocery store credit card slip.
xoxo on the kindergartener’s reading log.
xoxo on the field trip permission form.
xoxo on the Friday folder.
XOXO!
