an excerpt from my upcoming book, "Coming Out of The Dark".....
Guilty.
Convicted. Felony. Prison.
It was as if bullets shot right through the heart of
me. Sitting in that courtroom, my family
and friends around me, I couldn’t begin to process how the next year would
change my life. I was labeled a felon. I was to serve a prison sentence. I would lose my identity, be separated from my
family and removed from my life for a year.
The officer waited to escort me to the county jail where I
would await transportation to the state women’s prison. I started
saying my goodbyes. There were words of
encouragement, promises to pray and hugs of support. Each tearful goodbye made the sentence I was handed
more real. Tears ran down the face of my
sweet, caring mother; my stoic, younger brother standing behind her. As I hugged her goodbye, my mother apologized
for ever letting me down or not being there for me. After the distance I created, the lies I told,
the disappointment and the heartache I caused, my mother was apologizing to me. My dad, so hurt by the events that had
unfolded, the circumstances that brought me to this courtroom, could not bring
himself to be there that day. The sight
of his oldest daughter being hauled away to prison, the daughter he had dreamed
big dreams for, hoped for all the world to be hers; it was something my dad
couldn’t witness first hand.
My husband’s eyes pierced me with the uncertainty that
flooded his heart. There was so much he
wanted to say, but emotions didn’t allow him to speak. We were going to spend the next year apart. Phone conversations would be timed, monitored
and expensive. Each letter sent would be
opened and read by prison guards, breaking any amount of privacy or intimacy. The miles between us would make visitation a
rare priviledge. The day to day responsibilities
at home would now rest on one set of shoulders.
Nights spent alone would make for sporadic sleep and when sleep did come,
it would be out of pure exhaustion from the emotional and mental stress we
faced. The past 12 years of our marriage now tested by time and space.
The rest of that day is a blur. I vaguely remember arriving at the county
jail, changing into orange scrubs and carrying my mat back to the women’s block. My personal property consisted of a roll of
toilet paper, a white towel and wash cloth, a paper cup, a plastic comb and some
travel size soap and shampoo. Hardly
personal. For the next year, my life would be stored in a plastic tote. My belongings subject to search and seizure
without notification. My identity, a six
digit number. My address, prison.
In all my thirty three years, I never imagined that I would
serve a prison sentence. I couldn’t
fathom that I would ever be at a point in my life where my name and the word “prison”
would be attached. Afterall, it wasn’t
as if I came from a family of criminals.
As far as I knew, I was the only one in my family that had served
time. I didn’t do drugs or drink. I never even held a cigarette let alone
smoke. I attended church, read my Bible
and listened to Christian radio. I didn’t
have any tatoos or peircings. I dressed
modestly. I held a good job and kept a
nice home. These qualities were not those
that made up a criminal. Yet, there I
sat, in prison.
(C) Copyrighted 2012 OW 42370 "Coming Out of The Dark" by Christie Barkley
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