Rebound

I must have walked twenty miles yesterday. Just trying to figure some stuff out. Move on. I was exhausted.

It's funny the way your own feelings color the way you perceive everything. I'm scared, terrified, of what's going to happen now. I see fear in people's faces. Everybody is scared of something. Warden is scared that I'm going to leave one day and never come home to let him outside to poop.

Over the years I've conditioned myself to stay optimistic, and I know things will work out one way or another. It just seems like time and time again the rug gets pulled out from under me just when everything seems to be coming into balance.

Curt, I whisper to myself over and over, it's going to be okay.

It's going to be okay.

You'd have to be some kind of salesman to sell this product:

Curt Jimenez, fifty years old, almost fifty-one, convicted murderer, seeks employment. He is socially awkward and prone to absentmindedness. He is, however, very friendly, perhaps uncomfortably so. He has almost no employment history due to a twenty-six year imprisonment. He was involuntarily dismissed from his last job--delivering newspapers--for sassing his supervisor. He dropped out of high school at 17, but he did manage to earn his G.E.D. in prison. His skills include: creative butter making; writing (?); handling monotony without complaint; and showing up every day.

I did talk to Belle Star, who says that there are a few evening dish-washing shifts available at the diner.

"We can never get enough f**king psychopaths working here," she says. It is a joke--she calls everyone a psychopath--but it hurts a little bit. I'll need a thicker skin if I'm going to be around people a lot more. It'll definitely work in the short term, so I tell her I'll take it. Maybe I can supplement it with a little landscaping work over the summer. I like being outside.

Rent is cheap, my expenses are pretty minimal. I have a simple life and I don't want for much. I can sell my car pretty easily if things get bad.

You know what though? I've got a little money in the bank. I've got some time on my hands. I've got some unfinished business.

Curt, I tell myself, this new freedom is a gift. Adversity is opportunity.

I call Belle Star and ask her if it's okay if I start in a week. I'm going on my vision quest!