WEEKENDS
WEEKENDS
---The longer i'm in prison, the more things I find to miss. At first it's the obvious: Women, Family, Food, Drink.. But given enough time, I began to feel the absence of the more subtle aspects of life. Surprising little things that I once took for granted. Things you would never notice until they're gone.
---In prison there's no real difference between weekdays and weekends. In here, weekends are just two days of the week that start with the letter 'S'. Everyday is exactly the same.
---In the outside world, weekends mark the beginning and end of weeks. Which mark the beginning and ends of months. Which mark the unfolding years and so on and so forth.
---In here there is only 'one' beginning and 'one' end: The date you come in and the date you go home.
---As I watch old calendars pile up in my footlocker, I've realized that I miss the days when weekends had meaning.
---The electricity of walking out the door after work, or school, on a Friday. The satisfaction of accomplishment. The feeling of a hard earned reprieve. The anticipation of the weekend to come and the freedom that those two days represent. I miss the meaning that the weekend once held.
---We need the struggles of the week to give Saturday and Sunday definition. A context built in the early mornings, the late nights, and long hours of the week. We may hate them but they give boarders to the oasis of those two special days at end of every week. We trudge through the days with the help of caffeinated stimulants and sheer will power, blindly moving in the direction of the temporary finish line ahead. The impermanence of the weekends give meaning to their value.
---We sell five of our seven days, but the last two are for us. Whether we sleep them away, binge watch TV shows, smoke weed and watch Caddy Shack, take our kids to the park, get drunk and dance till we puke, read a book, get lost in the strange rabbit holes of the internet, what ever it is that we choose to do, it’s our time.
---Still, it's not about 'what' we do. Of course I miss those things. I missed them the moment I got locked up. But what I miss just as much, if not more, is the feeling of clocking out of work on Friday, or hearing the final bell of the school week.
---Remembering that feeling, of the potential ahead, makes the hairs on my neck stand on end. The possibilities of the next two days would send a surge of hope up my spine and my heart would swell. I'd walk a little lighter, smile more generously, laugh a little more willingly, listen more intently, and gaze a little bit higher.
---The more difficult the week, the more struggles over come, the more stress endured, the more work accomplished, in those five days, lends the weekend its glow. Take away one and the other loses its meaning. I miss that meaning.
---As I sit here in my cell, it's Tuesday evening, in a twelve and a half year work week. My Friday is still more than seven years away. My weekend is my release date: 2025.
---Since I've yet to make it past hump day, I can't afford to think of clocking out just yet. So, I try to keep my head down, do my work, and get through the day. But every so often, when my guard drops just enough, I find myself dreaming of the freedom to come. Wondering, what that final bell will sound like. What those first few steps will feel like. Will I float away on hope alone? Will my heart burst with anticipation? Will my knees give out on the walk?
---I lose my self for the briefest of moments in the thought of those two days in the future. Electricity courses through my veins before I'm reminded that it's only Tuesday night. That I have to be getting ready for bed, because tomorrow is Wednesday and there is plenty of work to be done before the weekend.
---For those of you with shorter work weeks, please take a moment on 'your' Friday, as you walk out of the door, to walk a little lighter, smile more generously, laugh a little more willingly, listen more intently, and gaze just a little bit higher. I need to know that weekends still have meaning.