On Incarceration

Do you believe in Fate?

I haven’t told very many people this before. I’ve been having a recurring nightmare since I was about fifteen about being in prison. Most often it’s a situational dream. What I mean is, it’s not a shot for shot recreation every time. In these dreams, I am always in jail, and almost always for something I didn’t do. A few times I’ve been on death row. Once or twice I have actually been through some form of execution. Many times I am doing things that I would never normally do in an effort to stay alive. Prison has been my overriding fear for years. I have spent the night in jail before, several years after I had the first dreams of prison, and it made them worse. I’ve been watching Season One of “OZ” this week, and Shawshank Redemption had the same effect on me. In one dark nagging corner of my mind, I have always felt that I might one day end up in prison.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I find such pleasure in everyday things. I love to do things because, “That’s they way things are done”. I won’t go to a ball game without my glove (though the one time I accidentally did, it worked out well). I never miss fireworks on the 4th, I never miss midnight on New Year’s (though it is my birthday as well.) I don’t just carry a Zippo, I can do all the flipping tricks. I don’t even smoke. I can tell a 55 Chevy from a 56 and a 57. I know how to teach a dog to catch frizbees. I subscribe to the theory that real men only drink beer and brown liqour (unless you’re an international spy). It should snow on Christmas, it should rain in April, and you should watch football, eat turkey, and then nap on the couch on Thanksgiving. Why? Because that’s the way things are.

“The only way to live as I see it, is to learn to love the little every day things” – Larry McMurtry

So maybe I am just preparing myself for an inevitable, incarcerated fate? Learning to love little things, so I can get by being deprived of the big ones. Losing my freedom frightnes me, but not as much as the fear that I might be preparing for it all ready. Doesn’t that mean I already lost it?