Hand in hand, just as we departed ways 11 months earlier, we reconnected.
Travis has been home for nearly six weeks!
We celebrated our anniversary TOGETHER and shared Christmas with family. Seeing my family reconnect and embrace him was purely bliss!
But getting to our family’s reunification was a long and tumultuous path. I never thought when Travis left last January the date of his release would be an eternal mystery and moving target. Due to calculations and recalculations of the First Step Act– extra good time earned through programming– and squandering the rights given in the Second Chance Act–time granted in home confinement and/or in a residential reentry center (RRC)– the release date was ambiguous and uncertain.
Literally changing several times in one day with no misconduct involved.
I’m not kidding.
If you know someone who is incarcerated, have them follow up every conversation with their case manager with email confirmation so it’s in writing. Often the information received verbally was different than what was put in writing and was what finally gave Travis a choice as to whether he would spend a very small portion his reentry time at a RRC or at the prison facility.
While there’s so much to say about what we learned about the system from his time in custody, my focus today is on the human side of the experience!
I think there is a short funny story that sums up our reunification pretty accurately…
One evening shortly after Travis’s return, I went to close the shades in the guest bedroom as I routinely do each day. This really isn’t important other than to note once closed, the hallway to the bathroom is dark. Void of any light when shutting out the dim hue of the neighbor’s backyard and streetlights. Walking around my house in the dark is the norm. I know the floorplan like the back of my hand, and I’ve long preferred a dim glow over having all of the lights in the house turned on.
As I walked across the hallway and began to step through the doorway to the bathroom, my face met the door unexpectedly with force. (Please laugh. It’s funny, and I wasn’t hurt!) I didn’t swing the door partially shut in the past 11 months of living by myself and didn’t expect the door to greet my face, yet I was so happy for this indicator of Travis’s return!
The floor plan that is so second nature had become foreign with one little adjustment to the position of the door. A true representation of reconnecting with my husband: second nature yet foreign. Neither of us, now, who we were at the beginning of last year, yet still the same individuals at the core of our essence.
The Day Before the Big Day
How would you expect to feel the day before your spouse is released from incarceration?
Today, I would see him for the second time in three weeks after not seeing him for over 10 months. Just three weeks earlier I was allowed to transport him six hours from Rochester to the RRC where, even though he was told he’d been approved for home confinement, he would spend the final three weeks of his sentence. Those hours together driving were sacred and cherished, but passed so very quickly and ended with leaving him uncertain still of the next time we would be together. Uncertain still of his actual release date.
On the evening before his release, we were granted 90 minutes together at a cafe of our choosing with the certainty we would be going home together in 13 more hours. Tears randomly poured when I least expected. Why tears when I expected to feel joy?
I had lived in disbelief, even booking the hotel room for the wrong week, as this day was seemingly never going to come as a result of all of the date changes we had experienced.
The disbelief was called on the carpet when I received the call from Travis that morning saying he had just signed the paperwork. His release for the next day was officially official. I expected to experience uncontrollable excitement, the kind that makes you jump up and down and shriek, filling your body with overwhelming joy. I had felt this excitement in August when we thought he was being released on supervision, only to find out shortly thereafter it was all a scam.
Now when the event was here, real, and true… all I could feel was genuine relief. The excitement was stifled, muted, and dull, but the relief I felt was like living in constant consumption of a deep breath out type of vibe.
Our time together at the cafe was true to us, something we most enjoyed doing with each other and of course in a pet friendly atmosphere. Being able to touch one another, embrace, hold hands, look into each other eyes, have more than just a voice on the opposite end of 15 minute calls with a crappy connection is holy!
Yet different.
Second nature and foreign.
As I sat in the hotel room sleeplessly passing the time until I picked him up, what had been months and then weeks and then days was now down to just hours, I observed the everything and nothingness I felt all at the same time. My emotions felt muted, dulled, stunted, and very confused. What I had expected to feel so powerfully I barely felt at all. It’s amazing how a situation that is so dragged out in deceit, confusion, injustice, and corruption can make you feel the most you’ve ever felt and the least you’ve ever felt at the exact same time.
And there is something magical about this aspect of the human experience, to hold two opposing truths at the same time while not making it mean anything about you or your experience.
There was also calm. The kind of calm that can only exist in the eye of a hurricane.
The next night, our first night together with both of us exhausted and depleted in every way possible, we went to bed at 7 pm. We chatted about some of his experiences, some of the stories that made his time away even more surreal, and he quickly drifted off to sleep. After not sleeping at the facilities for 11 months, I watched him sleep peacefully, blissfully, and in comfort.
In poetic fashion, we fell asleep on our first night together the same way we had the final night we spent at home before he left: holding hands.
It was second nature yet foreign.
And thus began the next chapter of our life story together.
Peace & Love,
Janessa
None of this would have been possible without embracing the baby steps of the process. Baby steps can be one of the most profound aspects of the human experience, reaching our goals, and never giving up. Listen to our most recent Eyes Wide Open radio show episode where we discuss the impact of baby steps on the personal development and healing journey.
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