I have been putting this off because I really don’t have anything good to say.

I started writing because I had hoped that it would help people understand that not everyone that comes out of prison is bad and unredeemable. I started writing because I hoped that I could help others like me: lost, confused, labeled, struggling. I was hoping I could show other formerly incarcerated people that they are not alone. I started writing because I had hoped it would help me, because writing is cheaper, and less awkward, than therapy.

I hoped…

Emily Dickinson said,

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without words – and never stops.

Emily also died alone, a recluse from the rest of world, so I can’t really take her words to heart, no matter how poetic they may be.

I’m going to be honest, things just aren’t working out all that great.

Every time I turn around I’m losing someone or something.

This year was no exception.

I finally closed the book on my pervert ex-husband, but nothing really changed. He still got away with it. I’m still paying off my divorce and our marriage debt and he still has all the photos. He’s going to do the same thing to someone else and I will always feel badly that I couldn’t stop him. Now he’s just an awkward life story for me. When people ask why I got divorced, I tell them, “I’m divorced because my ex-husband put hidden cameras in our home, filmed me naked without my knowledge and put it on the internet.” People have told me that I should just make up something else, that I shouldn’t say what happen.

Why?

Because my trauma makes you uncomfortable?

HA, fuck that! I am uncomfortable everyday when I think of that asshole in possession of all those photos and videos, so you can be uncomfortable for the five minutes you pretend to care about me.

Guess I’m still angry, huh.

What else happened this year….

I got cancer, that was fun.

People who are incarcerated, for a decade or more, are five times more likely to get some form of cancer. The life expectancy of the incarcerated, and formerly incarcerated, is reduced because bodies are not built to survive the inhuman amount of stress incarceration causes internally. We breakdown faster than your average Free Joe. So, when the doctor told me he found malignant cells, I wasn’t all that shocked.

I had surgery and then I had to wait to see my margins before a treatment decision needed to be made. When I was faced with the idea of making treatment decisions, it was surprisingly easy to decide not to treat. I had absolutely no desire to go through radiation or chemo because I was okay with being done. I had to be honest with myself and ask, why would I put myself through that, why do I need to fight? According to the doctor, I am going to live. Life and death decisions did not need to be made, but it was a sobering and eye opening conversation that I had with myself about what I really want to overcome.

Overcoming has become exhausting. I am so busy trying to make it through, I am missing out on everything else. I work, I survive, but I don’t really live. I have been living for everyone else for so long, I don’t even know what living for myself looks like.

This year, I have done all the things I thought I was supposed to do. I finally got a salaried job, but I am still stuck in restaurants. I am now a GM, but that’s it, there’s nowhere to go from there.

I bought a house I hate and poured all my money into fixing it to make someone, who doesn’t even live here, happy. I would sell it today, but since the courts still own my ass, there is no where I could I go without a ton of hassle and paperwork. So, I’m stuck, the reluctant homeowner of a house that will never be done.

Then there was Matt.

Matty and I got into a fight last time he was in town and when I reached out to him to tell him about my cancer and that I loved him and wanted to make up, he was gone. He died, a week later, without ever reading my message. That one will always hurt, as I sit here wearing the world’s softest Guinness t-shirt that I stole from him. Matt was the one person I could always count on. Whenever I needed him, he was there. He moved me into this house, Chops bit him and he loved me anyways. We talked every week after he moved and I will always regret not telling him to come home because Florida is dumb and he belonged here with his real friends. I will never eat Hot Cheetos again because there’s no point without him.

I went on an “I Love you” spree after losing Matt, making sure that everyone I love knows it. But, if you have ever loved anyone, you know letting people know you love them always comes with the risk of being let down. It was no different for me. Not everyone I love, loves me back and people say what they want you to hear more often than you think.

I know I am supposed to be grateful for my life, my home, my job, but I just can’t muster up gratitude right now. I’m not a huge fan of my life. I want something consistently good in my life, something that lasts, anything. I am so tired of always being okay because that’s what I should be. Nobody worries about Kellie because she can handle it all.

One of my team members told me the other day that they want to be me when they grown up. Jesus! No, no you don’t my dear. My life is far from enviable and my public persona has her shit together much more than my true person.

For the last seven years, I have been surrounded by people, yet I still feel completely alone. I’ve not left this house for ten days before and there is not one person in the world who noticed or cared because I am always on my own. Whenever I see anyone, its because I go to them, no one comes to me.

I just want to be happy.

I realize that not everyone is happy all the time, but FUCK, at least people have happiness in their daily lives. I have dogs and an extremely needy cat and that’s it, that’s what I’ve got. I would die for my fur family, but they love me unconditionally because I control the food and the belly scratches, it’s not really what I am talking about when it comes to happiness. You know?

It would be nice if all the happy didn’t just slip through my fingers like sand every time I try to get a grip on it.

Happiness, it’s slippery little sucker.

I don’t have a career, I have a job. I don’t have a home, I have a mortgage. I don’t have love, I give love.

Like I said in the beginning, I have nothing good to say about this year, but maybe that means I should stop or maybe I should just keep going. I have no idea. But here it is, a written record of I am not okay and I do not have anything together, I just fake it.

Because that’s how the world works right?

Every one is happy when people are watching and if there is bad, it’s carefully crafted “bad” with only the best ring lighting.

And, I call bullshit.