B41) A conversation with God (part 1)

Four fucking years in this god forsaken shit hole with these god forsaken people. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take this god damn heat anymore. The heat, the food, the people and the place have collectively pushed me to the brink of insanity.

Put a fork in me. ---------------------------------------------------------------- I’m done

Soon I’ll need to be put in a straight jacket then taken to a padded cell. From there I’ll be put on an IV with a thorazine drip. I will stay there for the remainder of my sentence. This is the future I feel destine for.

It was phone call day. I called my daughter. Four years I’ve been gone now. She remembers nothing about me. I’m a name. I’m a picture. I’m a theory. Bottom line, I am a horrible father. Why should she remember? Why should she even be talking to me?

During our conversation my daughter referred to me as “Chip” then referred to my ex-wife’s new boyfriend as “dad”.

Goodbye sanity

It felt like I took a shotgun blast to my mid section. Massive trauma. My guts spilled out onto the ground.

I'm dying.

I want to die.

I remember thinking I officially lost it all. This is my proverbial "rock bottom". They can’t take anything else. Now I have nothing else to lose.

I do not recall much of the conversation after hearing those words, “Chip”and “Dad” not being synonymous. I hung the phone up and staggered out to the recreation field. I remember struggling to breath struggling to think and walk.

It was monsoon season. A storm had been brewing all morning and it began to unleash its fury on us. I needed the storm. The sounds of the storm would be needed to drown out the guttural hatred I was getting ready to spew.

I remember thinking it’s time for a reckoning between me and God.

The screaming erupted like projectile vomiting; it was both ugly and disgusting. There was rage. There was hysteria. And there was more rage. As I released my rage on God it began to rain. As I hurled expletive filled rage at God the storm grew in intensity. There was more wind. More thunder and lightening. And more rain.

As I raged at God I began blaming my life and my life choices on God. The words sputtered out. Probably incoherent should anyone be listening.

“You mother fucker. I hate you” I screamed this at the top of my lungs.

“You are a fucking nightmare of a God" came out with a hysterical scream.

"This world is a nightmare of your creation"

It got ugly. Lots of blaming. Lots of denial.

As the rage came out it mirrored the storm. As I intensified the storm intensified. This gave me the feeling I was somehow connected to the weather.

After the blaming came the questions:

“Why me"?

Why are you doing this to me”?

Haven't I suffered enogh?

Lightening began to crack like a bullwhip all around me

“Do it” I said.

“Please do it”

I was daring God to strike me down with a bolt of lightening. I wanted to die.

“Do it you motherfucker”

When those words came out a bolt of lightening cracked to my right. It produced a shockwave that knocked me to the ground. It felt as if I’d been slapped by the hand of God. It knocked the wind out of me and freaked me out but it did not stop my tirade.

I was flat on my back. Laying there I looked up to the storm and I continue with more of the same.

"Fuck you this”

“Fuck you that”

"You, you, you. ........”

As I continue with the rhetoric I try to get back up. I want to stand again. I want to raise my hands and start swinging. I want to physcially get my hand on the motherfucker responsible for my life.

I feel stuck there on my back. It felt as if I was magnetically stuck to the earth. Either I lost all my strength or the laws of gravity changed for the finite space surrounding me. whatever it was I was unable to defeat it.

I struggled to move and ended up rolling over onto my belly. From there I pushed up with all my might and got to my knees. That was as far as I was going. I simply lacked the strength for anything else.

Then, as if right on cue, God stepped in and said two simple words.

“Say it”

I understand it seems crazy but amidst this raging and violent storm I heard a soft but clear whisper in my ear. It could not have been any clearer. Someone or something said:  “Say it”.

I pondered for a moment the possibilities and wonder, did I just experienced a complete psychotic break. Have I finally lost my mind? No need to wonder if I really heard the voice and the words because I heard it again. This time it’s different. This time the words have a commanding sound. Authortative. Insistant.

“Say it”

I have a concise and articulate response to the voice.

“Fuck you”

Again, one more time I hear.

“Say it”

But this time when the words came I felt the strength and power of the universe attached to them. I felt the ground shake beneath me as it would in an earthquake. I felt the presence of something more powerful than I've ever experienced.

Even though it's happening to me I'm doubting my experience. This cannot be happening. In my own mind this whole scene is completely impossible. Part of me is thinking, this is not happening. None of this is possible. I have lost my mind.

As I knelt there in the rain with the storm raging I speak the words requested.

“Alright motherfucker, You want to hear it?

You need to hear me say it?

You need to hear me admit to it?

Ok”.

The admission came from deep inside. The words needed to be forced out. I did not want to say it or admit to it. I did not want to speak whose words.

“I did this".

Is that what you want to hear"?

I began sobbing like a baby.

"I did this"

"This is all my fault"

"This is my creation"

"I have no one to blame but myself"

"I am so ashamed”

After releasing those words I began crying harded. The word and or thought shame unleashed all my tears. Everyone single one of them. It physically hurt, the pain surrounding my hearing my daughter refer to someone else as Dad. If physically hurt when I thought about my shame. this admission had been building for a long time. 
  

"Please forgive me”


When the realization came, I was just like my dad, it hit me like a freight train. My dad left me when I was ten. I left Brittany when she was three. I'd become just like my father, the one person in the world I did not want to emulate. I did not want to be like my dad. I became just like my dad. 

“I did this. I have no one to blame but myself. I am so ashamed”

The words kept reverberating through my mind along with the apology:

“I’m sorry”. This message intended for my daughter and to God. I'm so very sorry I let you down.  

What kind of a person blames God for their choices and actions? Not me. Not anymore. That train departed and left the station never to be seen or heard from again.

It may seem incomprehensible but until that moment I denied responsibility for ending up in prison. Four years I lived in denial about why I was there. I thought I was in prison because others betrayed me.

“I did this” would become my new mantra".

“I did this and I have no one to blame but myself”. A simple but startling revelation.

It's torturous to have family and loved ones on the outside.

It was a time for change. I am going to stop living with my heart on the outside of the prison walls with my body in the inside of the walls. Living that duality for the past four years brought nothing but pain. It was time to be here. It was time to be now.

As I accepted responsibility for my actions I would become present in my own life.

An announcement over the PA systems declares the yard was locked down.

“Return to your dorms and prepare for count”