Cleaning chores

Sleeping longer than 2 hours at a time has become something in the past. The lights are usually turned off around 10:30 but the dayroom is still open until midnight. This means the TV is on and the inmates are out of their bunks. There is a great deal of noise coming from the dayroom. Because of this it is very hard to fall asleep. I usually get to sleep between 12:30 – 1:00 am. But for some reason I always seem to get up and go the bathroom during the night.

No, I don’t believe it is a prostate problem (hopefully) I believe it has something to do with the hardness of the bunk. My theory is that the hardness pushes on my kidneys causing me to get up and go to the bathroom. I never drink anything past 8:00 pm, but I still have to get up during the night. I will spare everyone the details of my kidneys, but ever since I was a child there have been problems. It’s just one of those things I have to deal with which really isn’t a big deal.

In addition to getting up frequently during the night there are some correction officers who work the night shift who turn the lights on at 1:00 am and 3:00 am in order to do an inmate count. The florescent light is three feet from my bunk and as I have mentioned, I am a very light sleeper so I invariably wake up when the lights go on. Last night was no exception. The lights were turned on and fortunately for me this coincided with the need to go to the bathroom. All in all it has become a very rare occurrence to sleep more than 2 hours each night. This does not mean I am not getting enough sleep – quite the contrary – because I really do nothing physical all day and I am very well rested.

Today I was up before 6:00 am because it was my bunkmate’s turn and mine turn to clean the bathrooms and sweep and mop the floor. These chores are rotated from bunk to bunk which means every 14 days I get to clean. I woke up and did my series of pushups and sit-ups because the cleaning does not start until 6:30 am. I have always stayed away from cleaning chores when I was on the outside (my wife will verify this fact). However, I was more than ready to do something. In fact, I didn’t want to wake up my bunkmate because I wanted to clean everything. I started with sweeping and mopping the floor and doing this under each bunk. I have watched the other inmates clean so I could understand the “protocol” and most of the inmates did not sweep or mop underneath the bunks. I am not sure why they did it this way but I was able to get between and underneath the bunks. I was very aware as to NOT disturb someone who was sleeping. The last thing I wanted to do was wake a sleeping inmate.

I finished the sweeping and the mopping and to my dismay, my bunkmate was cleaning the bathroom! I never thought I could be disappointed by not having to clean a bathroom but in this case I was! Go figure, I guess there is only so much inactivity one person can take and I think I hit my quota many weeks ago. The morning cleaning was over but there would be one more chance to clean at 3:30 pm this afternoon. It really is a good program because the bathrooms and showers are cleaned twice a day on a daily basis. The floors are another story because the concrete was set long ago and really the only thing that would really brighten it up would be installing a new floor.

Again I was looking forward to the afternoon session and again I did not want to wake up my bunkmate. (My bunkmate does sleep a great deal, somewhere between 16-18 hours a day) I am not sure how he does it but the earplugs and blindfold may help. He is a unique person because last week he was up for 72 hours straight. I guess he is now catching up on his sleep. I started with sweeping and mopping once again but when I was finished one of my bunk neighbors started cleaning the bathroom. I told him that he didn’t have to do it because he just did it two days ago on his regular turn. I couldn’t talk him out of it because he was also looking for something to do and I certainly can’t blame him for helping out.

Due to the overcrowding, there aren’t any jobs available here. All of the jobs have been filled. However, there are volunteer jobs that I cannot get because I have to here for 30 days. It is quite funny when the announcement comes for volunteer kitchen workers. At least 20-25 inmates rush up to the front. The supply of inmates certainly exceeds the demand of jobs.

I recently wrote about one of my neighbor bunkmates who has been here for 15 weeks and finally received his transfer assignment. He was to be transferred this coming Thursday, August 31st. Last night he was rushed to the hospital ( he has many health issues) for some severe asthma symptoms. He has not returned and we are all hoping he gets better especially well enough for his transfer on Thursday. He only has 40 days left of his sentence but he was being sent closer to his home which is always a good thing. We are all hoping that we hear how he is doing.

I will close this passage with something my mother wrote to me about. There are some very good friends in my life whom I had forgotten about. Over the years I have lost track of many good friends for a number of reasons even before my “situation”. These reasons include living 3000 miles away, having a family, and having my own life. One of these very dear friends resurfaced after finding out about my “situation” from a third party. I was not privy to the conversation but from what I was told, there was enormous support.

All of my life, I seemed to walk around with blinders on and I took so many things and people for granted. I have learned the hard way and continue to learn how many great people are in my life. I have truly been given a gift of a second / fourth chance and I will continue doing everything in my power not to screw-up this chance. Everyone and everything I needed was right in front of my eyes. I closed my eyes to these wonderful people but by the grace of God these wonderful people have not closed their eyes nor turned their backs on me. I will continue saying this because it is so true – I am a blessed person with an enormous amount of blessings in my life.

Yes, it took losing just about everything – handcuffs, prison, loss of freedom to learn some valuable lessons. I know it shouldn’t have been this difficult but I guess I am a very slow learner. I can pray and hope that I have learned my lesson but this is not good enough. I have to change my ways and become a better person to truly learn from my mistakes. I am trying my very best to change my old evil ways and so far so good. There is no end – no cure – there is only me doing my best to live a positive honest life. This has been a long time in the making and I am grateful to finally have discovered a new way of life.