I live in a world that is very foreign to me.  I came from a “Brady Bunch” home and have been thrown into a home filled with constant filthy language, total lack of respect for others, verbal abuse and physical fighting.  My fellow inmates come from lives of drugs, sex, abuse and crime.  I had none of this in my former life.

My day begins at 4AM and “lights-out” is at 10PM.  We go for meals, clothes, medical appointments and meds outside of the dorm.  I do not work due to health issues so I spend my time reading, writing, visiting and watching V.  I am working on a book about my life in here.

Some women spend their time in the Law Library working on their cases.  I choose not to do that.  I have an attorney who is working to get a Special Hearing and I believe in his ability to help me get my conviction overturned.

Prison is definitely not a nice place to be.  I think the toughest aspect of being a woman in prison is having to leave your children behind.  She just turned 5 and though I see her every month for a 2 hour visit, it is still heartbreaking to know I’m missing her day-to-day life.  However, I feel very blessed to have those visits.  Some women never see their children and others don’t even know where theirs are.

It was shocking to find out I was going to prison.  I had never been in any trouble of any kind in my entire life and suddenly I was convicted of a horrible crime.  It was a crime I did not commit and I could not believe that the “system” had failed me, the same system I was taught to have faith in and respect.

Do I have any regrets?  Yes; I regret that I didn’t stay with my parents the day they died instead of going shopping.  I can’t help but think I could have done something to help them, protect them, stop what happened.  It will always be a haunting thought in the back of my mind.

In spite of this difficult place, I have had many blessings – yes, blessings.  They are too numerous to list here but they have been instrumental in changing me into who I am today.  I have gone from a scared, introverted, weakling who couldn’t defend herself into a bold woman of God, ready to take on whatever comes.