Before this place, I always had someone that loved me unconditionally – my dad, my Aunt Sis, Laura, my dogs – and even my cats. So this is a unique experience, a very painful experience.
When I woke up sometime in 1995, when I finally realized this wasn’t just a horrible nightmare, I was lost. I’m still lost, but as long as I have my insulin and I can write, I’ll probably survive. Even though I don’t know exactly when or if I’ll ever leave here – at least I have an outlet for my emotions and feelings.
My dreams – they give me the most trouble emotionally. I go to sleep and when I do – I sleep hard. You can empty a trash bag of aluminum cans outside my cubicle, and nine times out of ten, I won’t flinch. When I sleep, I dream. I don’t dream of unicorns and dragons and supernovas. I dream about my dad – camping trips together, baseball games, Ohio State football, my old life. And I don’t want to come back – not to this nightmare.
When I wake, those first moments of lucidity are always hardest – when you realize you are still alone. People may say things like, ‘I’m okay, I can make it on my own,’ or ‘I like being alone,’ but everyone needs someone. Real, feeling, caring human beings don’t survive in this realm for long all alone. Alone hurts – worse than any charlie horse, or scrape, or bruise or broken bone because alone doesn’t heal. It’s seamless until it’s overcome. There is no fertile ground in which to plant a seed and regrow what has been lost.
There’s an old quote – ‘It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.’ Maybe so, but if you don’t mind, I think I’d like to skip the lost part. What I’m experiencing right now is the hardest thing I’ve ever faced.
I will never take my pen friends for granted. I love them all dearly, and they have kept me alive for what seems like an eternity. To be brutally honest – if it wasn’t for them, I may have ended this experience long ago. But, there are two reasons I haven’t. One – I would never leave my friends thinking they didn’t do enough to make me fight for another day. Two – to quit would be the ultimate slap in the face of my dad, who is already quite disappointed in me for my present set of circumstances.
Everyone needs a period of solitude – a time to reflect and learn and change. This isn’t solitude anymore – this is alone. Loneliness is where you wish there was someone – anyone – you could talk to, to share feelings and emotions with, someone to understand things that no one else in the universe could understand. I’ve had two of these people in my life. I’m looking for the third –all I can hope is they are looking for me also…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Beginning to feel a little less ‘Shipwrecked, Abandoned, and Misunderstood’. In spite of 25 years behind bars, John Green continues to wake up every day holding on to his humanity and on a mission to change the world for the better.
John Green #671771
C.T. Terrell Unit A150
1300 FM655
Rosharon, TX 77583
