I am participating in the 31 Days of Free Writes October challenge. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. (Confession: I can’t resist spell-checking!)
Today’s prompt: Share
There is someone I have shared time with that I owe a letter to, and I’m fixing that today (raw materials all laid out in the pic above).
I met Susan, who is an inmate at a local women’s prison, during one of my visits there with Gulf Winds Track Club as a volunteer with their running group. Over the years (five-ish), we have exchanged letters.
I have fallen way behind on my letter-writing, even though I think about her so often.
I checked the Department of Corrections database (that’s a thing) to see if she is still at that institution (people get moved for various reasons, or released in general) and saw that she is scheduled to be released December 1.
And I remember thinking back when we first started talking, about how extremely far off the release date seemed. And now here it is (almost).
I thought “is it necessary to send a letter when she’ll be getting out so soon?” and then immediately thought “the time must slow to a true crawl when you are THAT. CLOSE. to being done, to seeing your children outside of a constrained visiting room again, to waking up when you want, eating what you want, enjoying the taste of freedom.”
That is why a letter is being written today.
I actually owe quite a few letters and there are some I don’t exactly owe but feel compelled to write.
Time to get the green pen busy!
Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.
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