Humiliation

I know I'm still several days behind, but I need to talk about what I'm going through right now. This is more for me, it's just easier for my to write it all down when I think somebody is listening....

Weird? Probably. What else is new?

I think I just ran the hardest five miles of my life. I might be exaggerating just a little, let's back up, I ran the hardest five miles of the year. That's a little better. Why? Partially, because it was on a treadmill. I hate treadmills. I think my maximum has probably been about 6 miles on a treadmill. Either way. Today has been a rough day.

I'm not sure how many of you know this, but I changed the route on my road trip and headed back to see Eric one last time before I head home. My dad made this very convenient for me by asking me to pick him up from Las Vegas on my way back to Montana. Visiting Eric was already on my agenda, but my dad made it so I had an excuse to see him both Saturday and Sunday. So, same rules apply as last time. Dress code, security, etc. ect. I felt like I had gotten used to the "ropes", although a man I've met, Randy, who visits an inmate, told me that they are constantly changing the rules, just to spice things up. I made it in with the first group, everything was fine.

For some reason, this is the one place where time flies. All we do is sit and talk, and somehow, before both of us knew it, it was after noon. Eric got called up once for some sort of "warning" for being too touchy feely. I mean, really? All we are "allowed" to do is hold hands, and that can be kind of hard. Don't get me wrong, I'm too much of a prude to do any public groping, but we were getting scolded for my hand being on his leg and stupid stuff like that. I felt like we were really being targeted today, and I'm not sure why. I've been nothing but nice to the guards, I say please and thank you, I'm as polite as I can be. It was weird. Eric gets called up again, but this time we had noticed that there were more guards up there, including some head hauncho of some sort. He was up there for what felt like an eternity. It made me nervous, but at the same time, it's kind of comical watching these shorter guards talk up to Eric. He finally comes and sits down by me only to tell me that we have to leave.

What? Are you serious? I was devastated. What made me the most mad was that we were being kicked out of visitation for my putting my head on his shoulder and touching the back of Eric's neck. We weren't the only ones doing it! My god. Are you kidding me. My instant response was to cry. I was sad. I mean, they are taking away two precious hours. I promise to be good. I swear. It was the worst feeling.

The most humiliating part was walking back through security with the guard and having him lecture me, saying that we did it to ourselves. I think what drives me crazy is thinking back to when I was here a few weekends ago and how I had done NOTHING DIFFERENT. I have a feeling this is something that I am going to have to get use to, the constant rule changes. Randy was right.

So, I'm back at my hotel room, feeling sorry for myself, which is something I do on a pretty regular basis, I usually don't share that with anyone except Eric, I know you don't want to hear it.... I took a nap. I felt a little better after that. I turned on the TV, that show Lockup was on, I watched that for awhile & then convinced myself that I needed to go exercise. This is where the run comes in.....

Now I know that I should have been running more on this trip, but quite frankly, that can be hard when you are vacationing. I knew in my mind that if I could get through an hour on the treadmill that life could go on. Do you ever do that? Look at something so small in your life and say, if I can climb this hill, the mountain beyond that will be a piece of cake. That's how I saw it. I looked at this run to be an immediate challenge in my life and if i could pull through, then I could believe in myself enough to continue on with my path to happiness. And that's exactly what I did. I don't know how other people make it through anxiety, but for me, a little bit of exercised induced sweating goes a long way for my mental stability. Sometimes I need to be reminded of this....

To be continued.....