No Yesterday, No Tomorrow, 8-9-2010

 I executed my Will yesterday. I have no assets - old books and some fishing gear are all remaining to me. The federal government took the computers with my only important asset - a collection of automated legal forms.

But executing the Will did give me a little piece of mind. I have hopes that my writing will find a publisher. [Ah, vanity never fails, does it? sch 3/12/23] Maybe some of these jottings can be collected, too. If they do, I can die knowing the assets will go to my son, my ex-wife and her youngest. I see no other means I will have of making amends to them.

I am trying to work how I will live out my sentence. The worst case scenario I have is survivng prison. The next worse case scenario has me dying but leaving nothing for my heirs. 

I have now been in federal custody a few hours short of five months. I have trouble remembering what life was like before my arrest. I know basically it was work, eat, sleep, work, frequent trips to Muncie to smoke crack. What troubles me most is not being able to recall people. People I knew for years I cannot easily conjure in my mind's eye. I often forget I have not known the people in this dormitory all of my life. I have now spent more time with them than I spent with any other people during the five months before my arrest.

I find this interesting when I have things unthought of for decades pop up from nowhere. I once had a memory bordering on total recall but not now. I s the fault physical (getting older, cocaine use, early stage Alzheimer's?), or psychological (some sort of shock from the arrest)? Someone here mentioned Greencastle and it came to me that I attended a sorority closed dance in 1979 that took me through Crawfordsville and Greencastle. I had not thought of this for decades. I cannot now remember who I went with, what was the sorority, or where was the actual dance. Then there was the sudden remembrance of an old toy of mine (a knight and horse with snap-on soft plastic armor) that goes back forty years. Where did that memory come from? Yet, I have a hard time seeing my former wife's face and cannot remember the names of clients?

Speaking of the former wife, a friend wrote this weekend about how the former wife is getting on with her life. As she should, I think. If I had managed to kill myself as planned, what would she be doing then? But this did get me thinking about how I should deal with my former life.

All these thoughts about memory have led me to work on a memoir. I am concerned that I forgot details that might explain myself to others. After all, if one is to be a cautionary tale, then one had better explain the dangers others need be cautious about. having finished it, the details coming to mind might have historical interest but tell nothing about how I ruined my life.

I view the future as non-existent. A future implies goals and ambitions, which I find extinct in me. I have a term of imprisonment. I will take each day as it comes. So far my days have a dull sameness to them. I have my sentencing and my departure to prison as future events.

I will admit to several fantasies about my life in 2021. They all seem to have a common motif: food. I expect no persons I knew before my arrest to be in my life after I serve my sentence. Do not take this the wrong way. I wanted no one to mourn, and I lived most of my life since 1984 with this in mind. When I relented, I only caused problems.

Back to the fantasies, perhaps? I have so imagined myself as a maker of mustard, haberno, apple butter/chutney, and a variety of pickled peppers. I have also seen myself on a farm with livestock. Finally, there is the creation of a Hoosier applejack to rival Calvados.

Let me state, without any quibbles, that the food here is atrocious. Produced by Aramark, it's conducive to constipation and flatulence. I t have the distinction of making McDonald's appear as being haute cuisine. That might explain the food fantasies.

For the record, I do think of women now gone from my life. Nothing different from my pre-incarceration days, except how seldom they come to mind. My biggest discovery about my present situation and my future imprisonment is learning I will have no one to love. That I am my father will not last out the year occupied much of my thought this week.

So no future and a ruined past, I go on breathing as if I were alive.

I do know one thing about my past: I screwed up not dealing properly with my depression. Try avoiding my mistakes.

Think on this from Psalm 30, 7:

Mere phantoms, we go our way;/mere vapor, our restless pursuits;/we heap up stors without knwing for whom.

sch