Happy Holidays O’Dayers!
From all the e-mails I’ve been getting from you I can tell it’s been an interesting season for all of us! There are so many parties and functions to attend, and each one is special in its own way.
I recently attended a Christmas party/reunion for those of us who were either incarcerated in or worked at the Lady Bird Johnson Correctional Facility for Criminal Women.
Let’s face it, if you’ve been in prison and you show up at a reunion you’re there for one of two reasons. You either want to share with folks how great you’re doing and celebrate the spirit of the season or you want to steal stuff from the coatroom.
At our gathering many of my “prison sisters” were a breath of fresh air, women who are now holding jobs, improving their lives, and contributing to society in a positive way. Evie-Marie even had her teeth fixed! (You go, girl!)
The folks who weren’t doing so hot were the former facility officers and prison guards.
Back when we were prisoners, our captors seemed to have their lives together. After all, they were working, they owned homes with above ground pools and they had barbecues on weekends. They seemed to be living life to its fullest because they were not living behind bars. Now I realize that just isn’t true.
Turns out the guards were busy thinking that everyone else’s life was better. They were waiting for life to come to them. And today they are in the exact same place -- waiting for life to come to them. Watching those guards drain cheap beer after cheap beer and listening to them complain about their extremely comfortable, ordinary lives I wanted to give them a one-way ticket to Zimbabwe.
People, we turn on the faucet and have fresh water. We flick a switch and lights turn on. While we all have our own sorrows, we’re really doing pretty well. Complaining about wanting new carpet or gaining five pounds just doesn’t make sense in the long run.
So as we hurtle into the New Year let’s take a moment to see how good we’ve got it. With discipline, hard work and a can-do attitude we will take ourselves further. But let's start that hard journey by being grateful for what we have right now.
E-mail me at PowerofSandra@aol.com
PS -- A special shout out to the folks who completed the Four Day Bailout at O'Day Camp. It was a heck of a long, cold weekend! Kudos to all of you!
