Journals From The Pen-- The Final Days

Dear Journal,

I AM CLOSE TO 100 DAYS NEAR RELEASE! Nervous? NO. Excited? Not really? I have never been a polar person. I never get too high or too low. After all of these years (10 years) I still am mind-boggled that I have spent TEN YEARS IN PRISON. I don't regret the years I have lost. I will be 30 in three weeks and I don't feel the slightest desire to recapture my 20's--- not one bit. I do sense that I am a little more snappy at work. My tolerance level for some of the nonsense that I hear daily is waning. I don't snap at anyone, but my attitude is a little more serious. Today, my boy asked, "Marlon, what's up. I haven't been hearing your usual warped sense of humor." I responded like a bootleg Buddhist monk, "There's a time for everything". Then there is the fact that I still haven't got any serious job contacts. I know the economy is twisted and all, but I just get a little worrisome. I am confident that everything will work out, but this is a journal and I am just speaking my mind. I have high expectations for myself, and so do others. The expectations are OK. Really, I don't even consider the expectations as pressure because I know me and I know what I want and I know I will exceed them. My high expectations are simply the habits that I have formed during my incarceration. Great habits. Actually, it is a blessing to have other people think so highly of me-- an honor. I just do what I ought to do, you know. I am blessed with a beautiful mind, and I simply want to use it to help others that are not blessed in those areas.

Before I close, here is an excerpt from something I wrote while at work yesterday in my job at Transitional Services at Otisville:

107 days to go. I'm at work at the Transitional Services Center preparing lesson plans for the upcoming Phase III cycle. The men in Phase III are within 120 days of release, JUST LIKE ME.

The irony of it all is great. After 10 years in prison and four years preparing scores of men for parole, deportation, release; preparing them for their families and friends; and preparing them for their re-socialization, here I am, the guy about to be released. There are no release jitters for me, thankfully. Preparing others has prepared me.

I am all ready, except for one thing. I haven't secured employment yet. I am still confident that I will obtain employment before release. I guess it is the fact that it is the last hurdle that I have to jump before release.