So this is Christmas…

This week  I sit here, away from my family at the holidays once again, and I find myself thinking. I am where the universe wants me to be, or else I wouldn’t be here. Since I don’t want to be here, I realize I need to look for the lesson in the situation.

Christmas is in just a few more days. It is hard to believe that last year at this time of year I was in prison too. And, the year before that I was in a long term rehab at Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years… and the year before THAT I was also in rehab during all the holidays. It makes you think I must like being locked up and I must care less about days like Christmas and holidays, right?

No, that is not true. I can’t wait to spend next Christmas with my family.  So, what’s the lesson in all this? I think the lesson is – Whatever stupid shit you are doing that will put you in prison, think about it. When I was out there and I knew I was screwing up on my probation, I wasn’t thinking about things like missing my family so much, and the good times spent with them at the holidays.

What I was thinking back then was that probation was just as bad as prison would be, it was keeping me from doing what I wanted, and stressing me out, and I wasn’t free with probation hanging over my head. I was thinking that my probation officer was an asshole for making me piss in a cup. I was thinking it was cool to put off my community service work when a friend wanted me to do something with them. I was thinking my friends had my back, just like I had theirs. I was thinking that AA was bullshit because when I tried getting sober I was bored and didn’t have friends and it wasn’t possible to hang out where and with who I wanted to.  I was thinking shooting heroin wasn’t that bad because it mellowed me out, and I barely drank at all when I used. I was thinking a little meth mixed in was ok too. And I was thinking if I ended up having to do some time in prison, well I could handle that, it wasn’t going to be that big of a deal for me. I wasn’t scared of it. That is what I was thinking.

What I was not thinking about then, was that in all this time since, not one of those friends have written me, visited me, or asked my family where I was for that matter. For all I know, they think I am dead. I was not thinking that the scariest, hardest, worse part of prison wasn’t going to be the fights, gangs or the shithead guards, that it is the gut wrenching, lonely pain in your heart when you think about your family. How you can be a grown man and miss your family enough to make you cry but you can’t cry, because you’re in prison and trying not to get your ass kicked too much. I was not thinking that I would have all this time to sit and think. Would it have been better to do things different than I did? Yes, it would, but I really wasn’t thinking.