I used to write all the time. Not only to escape or live greater adventures than my life offered as a kid, but as a necessity. It’s always been my way to process, cope and let go of things. Once it was on paper, it wasn’t weighing on my chest anymore. It was sometimes so instant, that I couldn’t even understand why that thing bothered me so much just a few minutes ago. I won some writing contest prizes as a teen, then I stopped writing stories. I started writing my own in journals, then a blog (anyone who remembers 20six?), more blogs… and eventually, to the man I would marry. I guess it’s no surprise this is how we met and fell in love. I’ve had pen pals before and aside from the time I kept in touch with my best friends through letters at 15, I’ve never had such deep conversations with someone by mail. Phone “didn’t exist” for him at the time and we had thousands of miles between us, so letters were really everything we had to get to know each other. We started as complete strangers and quickly trusted each other with our real deep selves. I will never be able to explain how it happened or how this was even possible. I didn’t think it could be but I watched myself become addicted to his words and ears. So we shared and shared until we crossed that line of knowing and appreciating each other enough to recognize there was love. A beautiful love not based on anything superficial like what we looked like, but based on our raw characters, forgiven flaws, and communion of thoughts. We were never meant to meet, though we belonged together. It was a delicate journey to accept the obvious and make a commitment to each other. We wrote our way to each other, maintained a relationship through mostly letters for years, and now we are trying to manifest a future that is not supposed to exist.

Unfortunately, writing has been hard lately, for both of us. Our minds are monopolized by anger and despair. And since I don’t write, I don’t get rid of those heavy feelings. There are things you cannot share when you are in a prison relationship. Your letters are read, your phone calls are recorded, your own lawyers step into your most intimate moments by requesting everything. Only someone with a similar connection and the same means of communication, in the same terrible predicament, can understand. For and by everyone else, we had our humanity stolen. We are a number, a story, nothing is private, nothing belongs to us, no one respects the boundaries.
Some days, I wonder if a deep love that cannot be expressed is able to survive. If so, what for? Will things get better, will it all be worth it?

It’s been a while! If you are new here, I am so glad you found your way to my little corner. Allow me to (re)introduce myself.

I’m Sigrid, I’m French and I live in Northeast Florida. The American Dream? Well, not really. I was living my personal dream of settling in Beautiful Copenhagen, Denmark – my first Love – and a marriage later, I ended up in a city/State that couldn’t be more different, here in the United States. No need to say that the adjustment was not easy. And the craziest part is that I am doing it alone since my husband is incarcerated (before you ask, no, he is not coming home anytime soon).

I have a lot on my plate as I balance a full-time job, my awesome prison pen pal program Wire of Hope, trying to develop my shop Sweet Undertone, my community engagements, and being a good mom to my amazing toddler.

This blog was created to:
– Be real about life in the USA.
– Share my knowledge of navigating the FDOC and other prison systems for the last 7 years.
– Support my fellow families impacted by incarceration and create greeting cards that fit your situation!
and probably vent about the struggles of motherhood… especially as a busy “single” mom with a sick child (postpartum depression anyone?).

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Going down Memory Lane tonight watching The Last Blockbuster. If it’s still around then, I’ll take my boy to an educational road trip and try to explain to him that Mama’s dream was to work at the counter when she was a teen. All she wanted to do was watch movies or talk about movies, and even write movies.
I’ll tell him she rented My Own Private Idaho several weekends in a row because she felt this was the most special important movie she’s ever seen and wanted to memorize every detail… until the shop owner sold it to her for a few francs.
I’ll tell him that when she moved out of her parents, laundromat night was okay because it was rent-a-movie night too.
I’ll tell him she had hundreds of VHS that were organized by genre and actors – and chronologically (and would get really mad if someone would mess them up!).
He’ll think his mom is too damn old but hopefully he’ll see the girl she used to be and thinks she was awkwardly cool too.
I sure miss her sometimes.