Where Your Friends Are Your Friends

This is kind of an open, informal thank you to everyone who has stuck with me on this crazy journey, from the one who sounded the alarm online when I disappeared for several days, to the rest of the group to everyone who came rushing in to support me. I feel like I say thank you a lot, and at the same time, like I just do not say it nearly enough!

I am disappointed in myself for having fallen, but thankful that I have a group of friends who have gone well beyond the call of "sweep up the broken egg and bin it, aisle 2" to breaking out space age polymers, 3D printing tech, and all the other accoutrements of repairing in the modern age. "We can rebuild them. Harder. Better. Fatter. Stronger."

Jayel doesn't want to be fatter, is bad for their health.

"We can rebuild them. Softer. Better. Smarter. Stronger."

Jayel can work with that!

I've had some incredible lows during this ride.

Hellsburp County Jail was part of that incredible low. Locked in a jail cell with a massive plexiglas window, no privacy, nothing but lights all day and night, 6' away from a toilet bowl whose basin was filled with a slime, bearing a scent reminiscent of standing at a poor beach with sea life washed ashore and dying... In 80 square feet of space for five days at a time before being allowed out for a single hour to shower, possibly trim your facial hair with clippers, and place a phone call? Living like that for nearly five months in a cell by yourself, no reading materials allowed?
I had more dignity as a homeless person than I did in that time.

And in all that time, would you understand that I was more worried about my clients I had left behind in Oregon? The ones who needed their rides to their clinics and doctors, their physical therapies and pharmacies, those long rides up to Oregon Health and Sciences University Hospital? Are my people okay? I know this one was sounding ill the last time I heard from them. Is that one well? They just had a surgery a month ago. That was prevalent when I was in attendance in my own head after a month of isolation.

Yes, isolation is psychological torture when applied for too long. Even though I am (surprisingly) introverted, I do like to have conversations from time to time. Conversations are what you don't have access to in a lockdown wing in Hellsburp County Jail.
Back home, for the few weeks I was held until my flight to Hellsburp County, Florida, I was held single-cell in a small, 11-person pod, given time to come out of my cell almost daily with a couple others, shower, watch television, call my people, use a tablet that charged me 3¢ per minute to write messages (seriously, wtf???), even shave with an honest-to-goodness disposable razor if we'd like. We'd chat, trade books off the book cart with each other, recommend a book, and all was surprisingly relaxed, even for jail. No fights, no racism, just "we're here, together, I wish you good luck in your court appearances, go home soon OK?"

Going from that to five days in a cell, no contact with others, and idiots banging on their doors as the psychosis sets in, screaming at the top of their lungs about getting their [censored: genitalia] out at two in the morning?

I needed sane people.
I needed my friends, more than ever.

I'm certain that I have lost a lot of friends.
That is the nature of the beeps in America: get prison'd, damn near everyone believes you are toxic for life.
Those who can look past that layer and see that underneath, there's actually a person there, those are good people, and I super appreciate them.

For the ones who may be on the fence about me, who remember a free me, I want you to know that I am still thankful for the friendships we had prior to my arrival here. I hope that you'll still consider talking to me in the future, at the very least, whether we engage in conversation one 39¢ message at a time, or wait until I'm outside.

For the ones who have left, I respect your decision, and pray for your well-being and happiness.

For future friends, I welcome you with open arms. :)

May we all move forward, into a glorious high of radiant peace, no matter the efforts trying to prevent it.