I Can Still Worry

I got a text yesterday that my family member go home safe, no verbal contact yet. He told me before leaving jail that he has a lot to do once he got back so I’m trying to be patient. He is younger and like a son to me when he is not actually my son. However, he is still a few hours drive from where I live.

I wonder if we’ll still have the talks like we did while he was there or will he become so wrapped up in the outside world that I will need to take the backseat for a while? He’s got to get paperwork and appointments set up right now so I understand, but yet I worry. I have so many questions; what did it feel like to finally walk out? What did you finally decide to eat for your first meal out? How did it feel to see home again after so long? Sleeping in a quiet house, were you able to sleep? But most of all, how does it feel to know you have a place to call home still and have love surround you? I love him dearly and never blinked at his innocence. I do believe we have a corrupt system that has more greased palms than clean ones and I think he helped someone pay their mortgage or car payment or vacation. I don’t blame everyone else as someone has to put themselves in a situation to be questioned, but I do believe in wrong place at the wrong time and that was him.

Hopefully tonight will be the night that I hear from him and get to ask him my questions, but I don’t want to push either. I know it’s going to take a lot and I don’t want to be added pressure right now. How am I going to get through this? Oh, that is selfish and even though I feel it, that doesn’t make it right. I have to wait for him to be ready to call me but I truly hope he doesn’t forget.

Time Stops

What would happen if the world was taken away from someone and time were just to stop? What would it be like to try and become a part of that world when you’re allowed to experience it again? Seeing how things have continued on without you being there and finding that your existence might not have been as important as you might have thought or felt. How can my current life go on without me here?

I have a family member that has been in a private minimum security jail for the past 5 years. He is going back home tomorrow after all of that time inside the same place. I worry that the change will be too much. He’s had TV and access as far as music and magazines but to actually be a part of it is completely different. How will it feel to come back to your home and find everyone 5 years older, your family, dog and the trees in the yard with how much they’ve reached farther into the sky.

Would it be like walking into a weird dream that I myself have had before. Coming home to my house only to find strangers living there and I am no longer wanted. Or would it be like blinking and although the characters have changed or aged, everything is still the same?

I worry about the expectations that he has of himself and his thoughts of everything coming together quickly and perfect. He’s a smart young man although I think being where he is, has changed his ability to realize reality as what it is today. He’s actually been teaching other men there and helping them get their GED. Hopefully some of them will be able to leave there and be a better person than when they went in. I was glad to hear that he kept his mind sharp and helped to share that with others.

What would it be like to enter a familiar place and yet still be a stranger?  I would worry about still being loved but I don’t know if that’s what he’s going to be feeling or not. I love my entire family, even those I don’t speak with, I would never wish any ill harm. My love for him is unconditional and I have complete faith that once he gets over the shock and is back to his old / new self, that he’ll be better than ever.

But I can still worry.