Every minute of freedom is a sweet, slow-drip of syrupy goodness pouring through my veins.
When I drove away from the prison, I felt the puncture. The gates had barely shut behind me when the cold strength of the real world pieced through me.
You're back, the Universe spoke in cool efficiency. This will only sting for a second.
No one understands seconds like someone who has watched them click by from a place that knows no time, like someone who has done time, and been done by time.
Every second of freedom is sweet- sugared and weighty. It solidifies in my bloodstream like little lemondrops. It is unquestionably sweet, miraculously tangy- and hard.
Heavy and hard.
On mornings like this, I miss prison.
The TV in the dayroom would be on KTLA, and we'd wait to be called for breakfast. We watched for Sam Rubin, the entertainment guy, so we could be outraged whenever he disagreed with our self-qualified cinematic judgement. The day he called in sick, we gave the TV the morning off, too- and we chatted to each other and sipped on instant coffee. I'd do a quick check for everything I'd need for the day- my ID, my spoon, my mug. I was dressed in my only outfit. I had an hour of solitude to groom every day.
You don't see the gates, for the most part. The people who are in charge of your life are clearly marked and not at all secretive about it. Sam Rubin speaks to you the same, even though you might never see a movie in a theater again.
Life becomes normal without that IV of freedom jabbing through you. You stop seeing the scar where the needle once pierced.
You just live.
A little more bitter, a lot less heavy.
You aren't free, and that's one less thing you have to carry.
This morning, I couldn't find the sweater I wanted to wear. My coat didn't fit the one eventually selected, and now the sleeves bunch up inside the other sleeves. I was filled with too much anxiety to even consider breakfast, and the chaos of the outside world didn't slow for even a moment. The people who are in charge of my life here don't wear uniforms. They blend into the fog. There's a thousand smells in the air. A thousand people on the roads. There's a thousand channels on the television, and I don't even know how to use the device. It reminds me that I'm a widow now. He died this year while I was away, and the bittersweet memories fill me. The sweetness thickens my blood, the bitter thickens my skin.
I am heavy, like freedom.
I am free, and sweet.
Sweet and hard.
So easy to crush. So easy to shatter.
Everything in this world comes in hundreds, thousands, and millions. There are choices on top of choices, and under them, and behind them. There's so much to carry in our pockets and purses, and so few moments of stillness to pluck my eyebrows and wonder what Sam Rubin would say.
My mornings start differently now.
They're slow and sticky, full of small freedoms. The fibers of yesterday cling to the sweet residue of the small stuff I sweat.
It only stings for a second, but that second never stops stinging.
It folds into a minute.
My wound is fresh. I can see the puncture and feel the bruising as gates give way to possibility.
I remind myself: sweetness is worth the sting.
I sip my coffee and find KTLA on my phone. I sit by a pond, outside my office, and listen. I remove the coat that doesn't fit, and make a list of the things I have forgotten to carry, and the movies I should go see. There is still too much around me, inside me, behind me, in front of me.
But in the temporary peace, I am reminded of the sweetness that can be found in the 59 seconds that don't hurt.
I did 438 days of time, and one little second of pain is nothing in the face of that, even when it's folded into a minute.
Because it's a minute of freedom.
Because every minute of freedom is so very sweet.
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Do choices ever overwhelm you? How do you cut through the noise and find moments of quiet?
