1 year ago today
I woke up at 6:30am when all the lights came on. At 7, the officers brought us breakfast. Which was the same as every day: hard bread, hard peanut butter, tiny jelly packet, a molding apple, a few cookies, & a pint of milk. I just ate the milk & cookies like usual. Saved the bread & apple for later.
One of the officers came in to make a speech. They love to make speeches to inmates to remind them how big & powerful they feel. So they always come off as condescending.
Since it was Christmas, 1 person killed himself by jumping off the top floor headfirst onto the concrete. 3 other people went to the ER. I'm not sure how the rest tried to take their own lives. I didn't bother asking about it. Sadly it happens on all the holidays in there. A few people killed themselves on Thanksgiving too. It's not easy to be locked away, not being able to see anyone you love especially on the days that mean the most. It's sad that there's so many people who'd rather take their life than suffer through that feeling & honestly jail is a depressing & degrading place as it is. So adding that on top just feels like you're the lowest of the low.
Christmas didn't exist to me last year. I didn't want it to. It was just the same as any other day. Except all of us Mexicans all pitched in some food to make a huge spread for all of us to share in the evening. We made everyone a plate. It wasn't much, just the usual ramen noodles mixed with bits of pretzels, Takis, beef sticks, whatever. At least I had a tortilla to wrap it in.
We got a free 4 minute phone call every Monday & if you didn't use it, you could use it at anytime during the week (it doesn't stack though so you can't save it until the next week & use 8 minutes). I saved my phone call that week for Christmas. I used ALL my free phone calls to call my lady because I didn't want her spending any money to talk to me. I got to talk to her for just those 4 minutes & I didn't get to hear anything from Naya. I only heard Naya's voice a few times while I was gone & one was on her birthday so that made my whole night. Her birthday was the hardest day for me so Christmas luckily didn't feel as bad.
It's crazy to think here I am just one year later, able to do so much for my family. I've been doing 15 hours of overtime every week for the past month so luckily I was able to gift everyone in my family 🙏 which is the first time I've ever been able to do this because I have a HUGE family. I have 6 brothers, 3 sisters, plus my nieces, on top of my own daughter & her mama. I definitely spent the most on Naya's sister because of the Nintendo Switch plus all the games. But honestly my favorite was maybe a simple hoodie I designed for my dad. I gathered some pictures of his truck & made a collage to put on the back of the hoodie. Then I put one tiny picture on the front right side pocket area. It's a pic of the truck back when he first got started on it, parked in front of a mural of Prince. I simply captioned it "Where it all started". I was hoping he wouldn't find it corny but he was so excited by it. Then the rest of my family was all into it too & my stepmom even facetimed grandma to show it to her. My stepmom's dad is who originally gave him the truck so they thought the hoodie was cool too. Grandma was like "you better take care of it! No working in it" & my dad was like "oh I know" 😂
My stepmom said she wanted one too & her birthday is actually in a month & a half so I'll probably make her one too. Possibly get it in a different color.
One of the officers came in to make a speech. They love to make speeches to inmates to remind them how big & powerful they feel. So they always come off as condescending.
Since it was Christmas, 1 person killed himself by jumping off the top floor headfirst onto the concrete. 3 other people went to the ER. I'm not sure how the rest tried to take their own lives. I didn't bother asking about it. Sadly it happens on all the holidays in there. A few people killed themselves on Thanksgiving too. It's not easy to be locked away, not being able to see anyone you love especially on the days that mean the most. It's sad that there's so many people who'd rather take their life than suffer through that feeling & honestly jail is a depressing & degrading place as it is. So adding that on top just feels like you're the lowest of the low.
Christmas didn't exist to me last year. I didn't want it to. It was just the same as any other day. Except all of us Mexicans all pitched in some food to make a huge spread for all of us to share in the evening. We made everyone a plate. It wasn't much, just the usual ramen noodles mixed with bits of pretzels, Takis, beef sticks, whatever. At least I had a tortilla to wrap it in.
We got a free 4 minute phone call every Monday & if you didn't use it, you could use it at anytime during the week (it doesn't stack though so you can't save it until the next week & use 8 minutes). I saved my phone call that week for Christmas. I used ALL my free phone calls to call my lady because I didn't want her spending any money to talk to me. I got to talk to her for just those 4 minutes & I didn't get to hear anything from Naya. I only heard Naya's voice a few times while I was gone & one was on her birthday so that made my whole night. Her birthday was the hardest day for me so Christmas luckily didn't feel as bad.
It's crazy to think here I am just one year later, able to do so much for my family. I've been doing 15 hours of overtime every week for the past month so luckily I was able to gift everyone in my family 🙏 which is the first time I've ever been able to do this because I have a HUGE family. I have 6 brothers, 3 sisters, plus my nieces, on top of my own daughter & her mama. I definitely spent the most on Naya's sister because of the Nintendo Switch plus all the games. But honestly my favorite was maybe a simple hoodie I designed for my dad. I gathered some pictures of his truck & made a collage to put on the back of the hoodie. Then I put one tiny picture on the front right side pocket area. It's a pic of the truck back when he first got started on it, parked in front of a mural of Prince. I simply captioned it "Where it all started". I was hoping he wouldn't find it corny but he was so excited by it. Then the rest of my family was all into it too & my stepmom even facetimed grandma to show it to her. My stepmom's dad is who originally gave him the truck so they thought the hoodie was cool too. Grandma was like "you better take care of it! No working in it" & my dad was like "oh I know" 😂
My stepmom said she wanted one too & her birthday is actually in a month & a half so I'll probably make her one too. Possibly get it in a different color.
