Priorities

As I write this, E is still in the hole (day 12). No one knows if he’s getting out today, tomorrow, or ten days from now (time in the hole past ten days usually goes in five day increments). His remaining prison time has been altered. He has lost educational opportunities, a chance at completing his degree while here, his employment, and probably some of his good time.



Last night, one of the guys pulled a charge on the way to English class. “Unique” is no stranger to run-ins with officers. He’s a “5 percenter” (a Nation of Islam offshoot) and isn’t averse to being verbally confrontational with the staff. I’ve repeatedly told him to “be smarter than the guards” but they clearly bait him and he takes the bait.


As I’ve written before, I spend a great deal of time talking to these guys. In the past, I’ve said over and over “Get your priorities straight! Your education, your future, is too important to waste.” As my frustration would build, Randy (the personal trainer) could always be counted on to remind me “Larry, they do have their priorities in order. You may think E doesn’t have his priorities in order, but he does. He wanted a tattoo more than anything else. Doesn’t make sense, but a lot of what we do doesn’t make sense.”


And that made me think about my own situation. Did I put things ahead of my wife and kids? Painfully, I must admit I did. I knew embezzling from my employer was wrong. I knew there were significant risks. Yet, as I weighed the potential risks (prison, divorce, public shame) I always downplayed the likelihood of any of these risks coming to pass. In other words, I rationalized my wants by trivializing my risks.


Confession time. I had a good number of reasons for doing what I did. Did they make sense? Not in hindsight. But, at the time, having serious questions about my spouse’s love and commitment toward me, I rationalized being everything to everybody made sense. I could, I thought, make her love me.


In 2005, during a trip to Las Vegas, I was having drinks with my friend. I had had way too much to drink by this point and, as alcohol usually does, I spoke candidly to him about my worries that my wife really didn’t love me. “She’ll leave me if anything bad happens, any setbacks, and f---ups.” I slurred out. “You’re nuts,” he replied. But, then I told him about the problem in Tennessee when she told me we were staying together because she had nowhere else to go with our infant sons. I told him how she had pawned her wedding ring once before when I’d gotten in trouble. I told him after our friends lost a child she said to me “if anything happens to the kids, I don’t think we’ll survive.”


He and I never spoke about this again, until after my arrest and the first of many letters I would receive from the woman I loved. She began almost each jail letter with “there is no us, hasn’t been for a long time.” He and I revisited Vegas sitting in the jail.


As I thought about E and Unique and all the guys who seem to make dumb decisions, I couldn’t help thinking about my life. It dawned on me one day that I was willing to steal and do really anything to win a bet I had with myself that my wife loved me no matter what. “I bet I can steal a million dollars and she’ll stay because she loves me,” I’d tell myself, then remember she really wouldn’t hang in there.


Priorities. I made a commitment to a woman I loved. I took a vow and relied on that vow when I found myself wondering why this woman I adored wouldn’t eat and was depressed. At twenty-two, I realized when you loved someone it was for keeps, not just when things were good.


Priorities. I knew deep down I hadn’t been a priority in my wife’s life for years. That’s painful to write, but had I had the courage to say it years ago, I might not have ended up in here. Funny, she kept the house, the furniture, the artwork, everything we accumulated during our marriage, except me. The things were more important than the man.


Priorities. I received a blog response from “Anonymous” the other day suggesting I faced painful choices: close a chapter in my life and move on or hang on. In my mind I really don’t have a choice. Big S always says “you can’t make people be what they’re not and you can’t get disappointed when they are who they are.” What I want, what I needed all those years, was for the woman I loved to have said just once “I love you forever, no matter what we face.” But, she didn’t feel that for me. Why should I expect her to have an epiphany now and suddenly change?


Prison has given me a great deal of time for self-reflection and a chance to see the big picture. I watch the guys in here day in and day out, make self-destructive decisions and I realize it’s not any different from living “in the real world”. We all get our priorities out of whack at times. We all get desperate for something – a car, a house, recognition, love – and we minimize the risks and consequences of our reckless behavior.


For a long time I thought prison had radically changed me. That these experiences were making me into the loving, compassionate man God wants me to be. Then, I remembered that 22 year-old boy who was willing to hang in there out of a sense of love and commitment. That boy had his priorities in order. This 51 year old man is finally back to getting his right. So “Anonymous”, I wish I knew who you were. You really make me think. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but it will be the right thing though; I can assure you of that.


And E? He was just released from the hole as I write this and removed from the college program. He’s living in a different building; he’s lost his grant for college and will not be allowed back in. He can say “what the hell” and waste the rest of his time here or he can regroup, fight back and get his priorities in order. The choice is all up to him.


That’s the thing about priorities. They’re all up to us.