It was April 2016, and I’d spent the past three months trying to find a home in Minnesota for my son Tim. It was not going well. Tim, now age 13, seemed despondent. He’d spent the past 2 and a half years in a slew of foster and group homes in Washington,...
February 2016 and another birthday in prison. When I first arrived to prison it had been March. I’d had an entire year before my first birthday there and I had watched all year, interested as other women celebrated birthdays and tried to make them special....
Told the program would remove barriers and open doors to privileges, I began in December 2012 with an attitude problem. The intake process began with psychological testing. Afterwards I sulked in the treatment director’s office, arms crossed, sullen. Noticing my...
It is November 2011. I finished the WoW program and became eligible for the workforce. Nervously I checked my mail daily, waiting for a job assignment. I’d been fired from my last job so I could not choose the next one. It would be assigned to me based on the...
A year passed after I was first arrested in 2010 before I was sentenced and sent to prison. During this year I served 3 months in county jail, was released on bail, and had many court hearings. I passed the year in a mental fog, in such a haze I was even unaware I was...
