My Issues in Adventures From Prison

In an environment such as this it’s often hard to tell the difference between depression and extreme boredom. Recently, big happy optimistic me has been feeling seriously blah and I can’t decide if it’s mentally or environmentally caused. Nothing is as enjoyable as it once was. Take bocce for instance.
Last year, I was really into it. I couldn’t wait to play and practice and was disappointed when I had a day without a match. This year, I’d rather stay inside to read, write and be alone. My partner, Rick and I feel the same way. It’s just a chore now. Granted last year we were winning nearly every match and this year we’re lucky to win 1 out of 2, so that may have something to do with it, but I don’t think so. Both of us are of the “try harder” next time mentality so losing really isn’t that big of deal.
It’s possible that the game has lost its “shiny new” allure for me and I’m just bored, but I think it’s deeper. I’m nearing my half way home point and see little to do to make those 6 1/2 years productive or meaningful. I’m ready to leave here as a new man and start making my way in the world again, but I can’t. They won’t let me. It doesn’t matter that I’ve learned my lesson and rediscovered myself. It doesn’t matter that there is no way for me to fall into the same circumstances that led me here. It doesn’t matter that I’m more faithful and family centric.
All that matters is that a Judge arbitrarily chose to give me a 15 year sentence. There is no chance of reevaluation or recalculation based on my achievements and efforts of the last 6 1/2 years to get me home earlier. All they care about is the date written on my file.
Productive and healed or not, they’ll let me out on that day because two people they’ve never met (and that I only encountered for about six cumulative hours) chose that day. Nothing I’ve done or will do matters.
That sucks!!!
I’m all about doing things for your own personal growth, but I’m at a wall. For all of my creativity and optimism, I just can’t think of anything to do for 6 1/2 more years that will make my time here worth anything except to write more books. A task that basically requires me to adopt a monkish lifestyle, which totally subverts some of the work I’ve done on myself to become more social and willing to interact
with others. (As a sufferer of mild Asperger’s syndrome this is a big accomplishment that now stands contrary to what will really benefit me. And I’m at a loss to choose which is more important).
My brain, I think, is interpreting this cognitive dissonance as depression. The world feels gray and everything I do (besides writing) seems like a waste of time. I feel like I’ve been pushing and training myself to run a marathon and just as I find myself able to do it, I discover the race has been postponed for years and that there are no longer any other races to be run until then. I could keep pushing myself without further reward until then or I could sit on the couch eating Cheetos watching Comic Book movies. One is bleak and exhausting while the other is easy and filled with color and amusement. Which would you chose? I think most of us would be becoming one with the couch.
But I can’t. If I do then everything I’ve worked for is wasted. Staying motivated for 6 1/2 more years is going to be so f**king hard. But I have to figure out
a way to do it. I don’t know if I have the energy to do it. And that, more than anything else is what depresses me. I’m scared of becoming bitter and losing myself into institutional routine. I want my time here, the time I could be using to build my coffee shop and to get to know my nephews, to mean something and to have fulfilled a purpose. So I feel the need to write.
I know that I’ll leave here having written several books. It’s an accomplishment for sure. But if they aren’t good enough to get published or catch the public’s interest; If I were working or in a relationship I wouldn’t care. I’d have written them for me as every writer should. I hate that my mind has equated writing success to my only hope of a good life after prison.
It’s dumb and inartistic and so not who I am as a writer. It’s getting in my way when I try and relax; a niggling itch that I should be writing that distracts my free-time pursuits. Heck I feel guilty writing this because it’s not a book! Crazy huh? So, yeah, I’ve got issues. I’ve felt them growing for the last year or two but recently they’re becoming more worrisome. I just can’t settle my mind, relax and lose myself like I used to and I can’t figure out how to make the rest of my sentence mean something. My world is out of focus and I don’t know how to fix it.
Well, that’s not entirely true.
Going home and living my life like I want would fix it, but that’s not going to happen for 6 1/2 years.
So what do I do in the meantime?