Saturdays: A letter from my Love...

Ok, so I have decided that on Saturdays I would post a letter from L to me to show you how our communication is. The letter that I am posting today is one of the letters he sent to me about two weeks after our first date. It was a short letter but he got straight to the point of what he was trying to say. Whenever I go back and read his old letters I always get extra excited when I read certain ones and this is one of them. I hope you enjoy it.


Soraya, June 9, 2010

Everyday baby...everyday my feelings for you get stronger. Can't nobody tell me what I'm feeling isn't real. You're always saying that I really don't know how happy I make you right? Did you or do you ever sit back and think or wonder how happy you make me? Because you definately make me happy.

There isn't a drug that could produce a high that can compare to this.(How I'm feeling) I can't even count how many times a day I think of you. This may or may not sound crazy, but me getting locked up was a blessing in disguise and your the blessing.(smile) Honestly though.

I always tell you that everything happens for a reason, and I believe that if I had never gotten locked up, I wouldn't have met you and vice versa. Get what I am trying to say? Seriously, since you came into my life everything changed. It's like everything is smooth. I am more humble and relaxed. I don't even know if I am making any sense. It just feels good to know that I have a good woman in my corner that likes me, or loves me???(smile). I don't have to question your motive angle. Man...that alone is a beautiful thing. I don't second guess anything you say or tell me. Real Talk!! You and my brother are the only two that can say anything and I'll believe you..

I just wanted to send you a quick letter to tell you how much you mean to me. I am out for now baby. I'll write you again tomorrow. Promise(smile)
Until then continue to take care of you and your little one

Missing you like crazy
Ya Boo
L

Ps. Here is a song: Kindred Family Soul "Stars"
This song is going to be our Anthem (smile)

Did you enjoy the letter? I got goosebumps while I was typing it. I love how L can write me a quick letter and still give me butterflies. L is not big on writing all the time. He has told me that in one of our first letters. So sometimes I get a long letter sometimes I get a letter that is only one page front and back. I am always grateful with whatever I get because he doesn't like to write. I get about five letters a week from L and for someone who doesn't like to write he knows how to make me smile. We had also started to send each other songs that fit our relationship or expressed how we felt about each other. He will send me the song that he picked out and I would pick out a song and print and send him the lyrics and then I would download the song to my computer so that we have our own playlist to listen to when he comes home. The playlist is called "Our Soundtrack". Sometimes we have competitions on who has the best song for that week. We love having healthy competition with each other. And I can't say that I always win because L is sharp with the oldies HAHA!!

This letter shows you how we have had to communicate with each other for the past year. Having great lines of communnication are the ways that we don't argue as much with each other. It is a process of learning the likes and dislikes about a person. Since we can't be with each other on a regular basis we have to rely on each other to tell everything that needs to be known. No secrets. Now we know that we can't learn everything about each other over night or even in a year. We take time to just have letters where we just give up the tape about ourselves. Even embarrasing things which always causes lots of laughs.

Ok so Sunday is my rest day, so I will see you all again on Monday. Hope you enjoyed L's letter to me.

Feenin for the mail...

Before I met L back in January of 2010, mail was not something that I would look forward to. I mean, who looks forward to getting another bill or perhaps other junk mail every day? However that changed once the correspondence started between us. At first me and L would write at least one letter a week to each other. After I got comfortable talking with him, I would sometimes write more then one letter a week. We would have long deep conversations about any and everything in our letters. That was how he got me wanting more. When I first wrote that letter, I had no intentions on taking this any further then a friendship. I didn't even think the letters would last that long and neither did L. He would always say that he had to stay focused because the odds were 80-20. 20% chance that I would continue to write for the next five years and 80% chance that I wouldn't. After reading that comment I kind of took offense but after I thought about it for a while, I knew it was reality. We still never thought it would have come this far, which I think is beautiful about our situation. We were friends first. We took time to get to know each other without the distraction of wants and desires. All of this through letters.

So after the visit and we decided to take our relationship to another level, the letters became more frequent. I was now writing every day and L wrote about 5 times a week. I knew the days that mail should come and what days mail wouldn't come. For instance, there is no mail picked up or delivered on Saturdays where L was at. So I knew that I wouldn't get any mail from L on Tuesdays. I knew that if he wrote me Sunday night and it was picked up on Monday, then I would get it on Wednesday. Now some may say that its a little crazy that I know the mail days, but when this is your only major way of communication with your mate, you make sure you know when you are getting mail. HA!! You also start to not appreciate major holidays as well HA!! No mail means mail is backed up and your letters aren't coming on their normal days. Trust me, I am not the only one who has a mail schedule. When the feenin for the mail started, I thought I was the only one and I didn't like how I was becoming. Then one day I was told about a site where you can go and get support on being in a prison relationship. I went to the site and found that heck nooooo I was not the only one. There were tons of us. And they all laughed about stalking the mail man. I let out a sigh of relief. It felt good to see that I wasn't the only one dealing with all of this. L was never worried about getting mail because he got mail from me every day except the weekend. We started to speak to each other once or twice a week on the phone and I cherished our little fifteen minutes. But i will always appreciate the start of our communication being through letters. Which I think back to all the times when communication was a problem for me. This has been such a eye opener for me. I mean, so many people don't talk to their loved one every chance they get. They go to bed mad at each other. They don't take the time to say "I love you" to one another. All of these things are taken for granted. I use to do the same until the day my life changed with L. Now I appreciate every moment that I get to talk or write or see L. I cherrish it because I know that time is precious.

Tomorrow since it is the weekend. I will post an old letter for L. I'm gonna let you all see the love we had for one another and what it is to put your heart down on paper for the other to see.

Have you ever???

Have you ever caught yourself doing something, or wishing for something to happen and then right then and there, it happened. It was the Tuesday after my first visit to the Prison to see L and I was waiting patiently for the letter that he said he would write after our visit. When I called home from work that day, my mom had told me that no mail arrived for me. I was sitting on my porch looking at my phone ready to update my social networking status and put that I was missing a special someone and at that very moment my phone rang and there was the picture of me and L on my phone. It was him. My eyes got wide. The biggest smile came across my face. I ran in the house and up to my room for some privacy. I accepted the call and it felt like it was the first time he had ever called me. Hearing his voice was so comforting.

After the first visit, I went home and the fact that he was in Prison started to play with my mind. I wanted to know what he was thinking, like you would want to know after any other date. I wanted to ask him if he enjoyed himself, if he wanted to see me again. I mean he said all of those things while I was there, but I wanted to hear them again now that I was home. It was killing me that I wasn't able to pick up the phone and let him know I had made it home okay and then just talk for a little while to let each other know that we enjoyed each other. Then maybe set up plans for another date. The frustration of it all was getting to me. I wanted to speak to L. So when I got that call, of course I was extra excited to speak with him. As soon as he told me that he missed me my heart sank. Like, remember when you had that crush on the senior in high school and you were just a shy freshman? Remember how it felt the day you made yourself fall into him and he caught you with his magical arms and looked into your eyes and said "hey"??? Do you remember the feeling of your heart melting or the feeling of having butterflies all over your body. That was how it felt when he told me he missed me. It was wonderful. I never wanted the feeling to go away. We talked for the normal fifteen minutes and of course I didn't want the phone call to end.

We talked about the next time that I would visit L and I had already told him that I was given some information where there was a non profit organization that made monthly bus trips to where L was for $25.00 roundtrip. I was able to get a bus ticket and made plans to go on Friday June 18, 2010. That would be our second date. I knew I had lots to talk about with L on this upcoming date because my feelings were flying every which way. I could tell that we both wanted to say more but was scared of the others reaction. The end of phone calls were awkward and our letters were telling more and more about the way we were feeling. Although I was experiencing lots of happiness and excitement, this was also the time when a lot of things regarding a prison relationship hit me in the face. You find yourself doing things that you never did before. Well, I did. I had always loved attention. My mate had to show me attention and when I say attention I mean I needed to be around them a lot. But this....this was....different. All we had between visits were letters and a phone call once a week. So I started to wait for the mail. At first it wasn't that bad but then I found myself stalking my mailman from my job. I use to have my mom text me and let me know if I had mail or not. If I didn't get mail it literally was the end of the world. Some may say that I may have had a crazy moment at that time but I beg to differ. I was just trying to adjust to a new world for me. It wasn't something that I could easily adjust to. This was our communication. The communication that so many in the free world seem to take for granted. Over the next few months we learned to master communication. We could have one fifteen minutes phone call and start off cool then argue resolve the problem and then be back on boo lovin terms by the time the operator says "You have one minute remaining". Then with letters it was worst cause it took forever for him to get my letters. But we made adjustments within ourselves to have the letters work in our favor. It was hard as heck to keep from wanting the letters to never end. So this was starting to be my new life. I was happy. Would I have wanted it different and him out in the free world? Yes, I would love it but I know that everything happens for a reason. My reason you ask??? I will tell ya later (smile)

Before the Journey Begins...

I have been in a prison relationship for almost a year now. But, I figured I should kind of give you a brief background before I just dive right in on what has been going on with me and my love. There is lots to be said so I will probably split it up in a couple of different blogs so that you all won't get confused right away.

January 28, 2010, was the day that I wrote the first letter to L. I had been having trouble on the dating scene and a friend of mine urged me to try something new. Well, here I was, trying something new. I was writing my friends brother who was incarcerated in a Pennsylvania Prison. I couldn't believe that this is what it all came down to. My mind was closed as to what it was that I would find. But that didn't last very long. Soon, I realized the large gift that was waiting for me inside of those Prison walls.

Me and L wrote to each other for about 5 months before we decided that I would take the drive to go see him for the first time. I had no idea of what he looked like and was kind of anxious to find out who this mystery man was. The personality through his letters was strong and smart. He could make me laugh through a letter so loud. It was something that I had never experienced with a man out in the free world. If I hadn't just left a bad relationship two years prior to writing my first letter to L, then I would have jumped head first into this relationship with L and ended up with my heart broken or maybe even breaking his heart. By me taking the past two years to get to know myself and learn from past mistakes in relationships, I was able to see L for who he was right now and not for the past that he had. I was able to open my eyes and want to get to know him and not what he used to be. I had to think long and hard before I made that trip to see him. I knew that once I was there in that visiting room that if we clicked then I would have lots of thinking to do. I wanted to do that thinking before I got there. And I did. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do. I made the decision that if we clicked even more on the visit then I would be willing to take the next step.

The day of the first visit, I was a nervous wreck. I drove four hours to see him and I couldn't stop shaking. The guards were looking at me like I was crazy. I couldn't believe I had drove four long hours to a Prison to see someone that I had never actually seen before. All I kept saying to myself was "if anything, we can just be friends". When they called my name and I went through all of the doors, I finally was standing in the visiting room. I waited and I waited and then finally I heard a door slam and I turned to my right and there, right there to my right was the prettiest smile I had ever seen on a man. It was a bittersweet moment. He smiled and came over to me and picked me up in his arms. At that moment, we sat down and I looked into his eyes and I knew I wasn't leaving that visiting room a single woman. We spent the next seven hours of our visit talking and laughing like we had known each other for years. We smiled at each other the whole time. We were both complaining that our cheeks were hurting. We talked about everything from religion to politics to sports. It felt so good talking to someone who knew how to talk back. I will never forget that visit. It was our first date. 5-22-10

I left that day feeling like I had accomplished something. Like, I had finally accomplished the art of having a successful date. In all of my 27 (at that time) years, I had never been on a really successful date. I was extremely proud of myself and I couldn't wait to see L again. I knew I was in for a roller coaster. L had 5 more years left before he would be able to apply for pre-release. I had lots to learn and lots to realize being in a prison relationship. I thought I knew what was going to happen, but I had no idea.