I Am Not a Superhero

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 16 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My secret subject is: Sept is Back to school time. What's one thing you've learned recently?

It was submitted by: http://thelieberfamily.com 

I like to think that I learn something new about myself, the people I love, or humanity every day, so selecting just one thing was tough, but this particular lesson has been the hardest this past year and has come up more than once, so here it goes...

___________________________________________________________________________

Everyone searches for a purpose in life. A lot of people find that purpose in religion, but that has never really been my thing. Spirituality? Maybe. But, organized religion? No. When asked what drives me to keep going if I don’t necessarily believe in an afterlife or a supernatural parental caretaker, I reply that I have found purpose in helping other people and to truly extend my humanity. After all, as far as my own beliefs go, I have to wake up and answer to myself everyday rather than a higher power, and what makes me proud to look in the mirror is that driving force I have to reach out to people that others, even the most devoutly religious, tend to judge and treat horribly or to help those in need or even to give an

just one box of many

animal in need a home and a good spoiling.

But, over the last year as I have extended my hand through writing inmates (i would say offenders but a couple I firmly believe are actually innocent)  more and more than ever before while I have the time, desire, and energy to do so, I have had to come to terms with some hard lessons about not getting burned out, not taking on too much, and, perhaps hardest of all, that not everyone is capable of receiving and benefiting from help and support.

That last one is a kicker because it really goes against my natural instincts, but it’s the absolute truth. That truth has been a bit difficult to swallow, but I have been learning how to let go and focus my energy on people that will truly benefit and appreciate my time rather than giving my efforts to those who are filled with hate and have an inability to change.

I don’t like to give up. It just isn’t in me to give up especially on a person that in my very core I know needs someone to grow with, to learn from, and to matter to… This year, though, has really put that part of me to the test, the part that ends up sticking with things too long and putting other people’s needs before my own. This year I had to learn how to decide whether it would be me or them, and I learned how to choose me without feeling incredibly guilty or feeling like a failure.

Writing people who are in prison, as I have said before, is always a gamble. Even with the best of research, you never know how things will turn out and what a person will really be like. I have had a few bad experiences under my belt over the years, but when it didn’t work, it was a mutual decision to cut things off. This year when I expanded the number of people I write to hoping to help as many as I can take on and pushing the boundaries of how much I can do (like always), I changed the ratios on the gambles I take. The number of people I put myself out there with grew as did the chances they could be the kind of people that are unable to connect with others, who use and abuse people, who prey on the people they think are weaker. Research is nothing compared with interaction. I took the risk a number of times this year. Sometimes those risks paid off, and I made great strides in making friendships with people I have really grown *with* and have been able to develop friendships with, to provide support to, and to enjoy as fellow human beings who need just that—to feel their own humanity. More often this year, though, the risks have turned out for the worst. I met people who were miserable, who hated themselves or specific groups of other people to the point that rational conversation wasn’t possible. I met people who refused to take responsibility for their words much less their actions and who really wanted nothing more than maybe a dirty letter or someone to feel sorry for them, someone to talk AT, or to use.

So, I had to let go. And, I had to teach myself that it’s okay to do so. Sometimes giving up is the *right* thing to do.

Learning that has made what I do a lot easier and taken some of the responsibility I tend to feel about saving the whole world off my shoulders. Not everyone can be saved; not everyone wants to be. I have to be okay with that and give my superhero complex a rest.

________________________________________________________________

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

http://www.BakingInATornado.com Baking In A Tornado

http://themomisodes.com The Momisodes

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/ Stacy Sews and Schools

http://dinoheromommy.com/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/ Spatulas on Parade

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/ Sparkly Poetic Weirdo http://www.southernbellecharm.com Southern Belle Charm

http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com The Angrivated Mom

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch Confessions of a part time working mom

http://thelieberfamily.com The Lieber Family Blog

http://www.clutteredgenius.com Cluttered Genius

http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/blog.html The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com Someone Else’s Genius

http://houseofjchronicles.blogspot.com/ House of J Chronicles

On Writing

I write letters to people in prison.

I do this to offer friendship to people who don’t often have it but also to be a help where I can in legal matters or counseling matters or just a good influence in a life that often has far too few of those. Most of the people I write are in for life, so you can imagine the sorts of things these individuals have been found guilty of doing, but I don’t think a person can wholly be defined by the worst thing he or she has ever done or been accused of doing. I think, instead, that there are lots of factors that often lead up to a split second decision that a person would give their own life to take back, and that we, as a society, can’t just throw those people away. In fact, for many of the people I have come to know over the years, being thrown away was part of the problem to begin with…

It really is a gamble every single time I make the decision to do so. I put myself out there with a person who has often been accused of doing a terrible thing that can never be undone, and even though I do extensive research on the case and the person and try my best not to write someone who committed a crime for the sake of the thrills involved, it is still a huge risk to take. My information—address, age, name—is going into a prison where anyone could get their hands on it if the person I write isn’t careful. And, ultimately, as I have learned over the last 8 years of doing this, all the research in the world doesn’t always indicate what kind of person will appear in the letters I get back.

Whenever you take any gamble especially one that involves human interaction, you have to weigh the potential rewards you may reap against the risks, the potential losses, involved. Are the potential negatives worth the chance to experience the positives? Does the payout, so to speak, make the risk worth taking?

It’s a tough question to answer and one that I have had to continually ask myself. I’d be a liar if I said this was always easy, that I haven’t met some of the most trying individuals I’ve ever come into contact with in my lifetime this way, or that I haven’t been hurt over the years. But, in the end, because of the strength of the friendships I have made both through my letters and by meeting other people who write, it has been more than worth the gamble, worth the risks.

Part of it has to do with being able to reach out and help another person. It’s in my personality to get obsessed in a way with a cause and be an advocate for a group of people (I’m an INFJ). The longer I have done this—writing-- the more I have learned how often people in these situations, in prison, lose everything including friends and a good percentage of their family, and while a good percentage of the population seems to think it’s deserved, I don’t think that works. All the available research, for one, has proven that social support prevents violence within prison and lowers recidivism rates as well. Prison should rehabilitate, but it doesn’t. Not even 1/3 of the people in prison who need counseling and substance abuse treatment actually get it despite evidence showing these services cut recidivism rates in half. In the end, for me, it’s kind of amazing to see what a few letters from a person who has no familial obligations can do to build someone back up and get them on the right track/keep them on the right track. Being a party to that feels pretty fucking good in a way that truly isn’t comparable to anything else Ive done in life. Motherhood gives me the feels for different reasons. Donating, volunteering, or even giving a homeless person some money or help all feels great but it doesn’t compare to really being to reach out and connect with a person in a way that helps them find themselves. Not to mention, I learn as much as I give—about myself, about other people, about how I am perceived and what to look out for when I embark on my future career counseling inmates.

But that’s not the whole of it either. It isn’t some completely altruistic endeavor because I do forge real friendships that keep me afloat when I’m down or stressed. I have friends who make me laugh reading through letters, who let me vent, who—even when they cant give me advice—will do their best to dig through a situation with me and help me see something that I didn’t see myself. I have people in my life that I’ve met through letters that support me in a way that I don’t usually get elsewhere, because it isn’t a friendship based on 140 character snapshots of my life placed on social media updates. It’s authentic in a way that I don’t often get. There are still some (and I stress some) good people beyond prison walls who may have, yes, done an incredibly fucked up thing that can never, ever be reversed, but it doesn’t make them any less human, any less capable of change than anyone else.

At the end of the day, writing has added people to my life over the last 8 years that have brought me immeasurable joy that far surpasses any frustration, negativity, grief, or hurt I have experienced. The gamble has paid out in ways I never could have calculated, and I am far richer for having taken it.

______________________________________________________________________

This might be a bit of a controversial topic, but it's still one that is important to me and close to my heart. And, in the interest of authenticity which I have strived for since day one on this blog, I felt I needed to write about it. Thanks for reading!! check out the other contributions on More Than Cheese and Beer