BTB # 6324 Post
12-17-13

Dear Friends:

I needed a break to take care of some much needed social aspects of being in prison. If your environment is unstable so shall you be. So I needed to be able to think with a clear head in order to do and finish my work. I want to thank you for checking in on my work, and I am back drawing from my life trials and tribulations, wisdom that I can share with the world.

Friendships are not what they used to be! And I am starting to think I expect too much, as a dear friend has pointed out just resentfully. But I was raised to believe that people will be what you hold them up to. But nobody prepared me for when they wouldn't. I thought I had a handle on it all, but I learned something new almost every day. People change as their environment changes. So the question I have been asking myself the last few months is do I change who I am to fit who they have become? And after many nights of praying and tossing in bed, the answer was clear: no! Because you cannot be nobody but you, and to try and fit in a box to remain close to someone is not fair to who you are or to the person you are trying to stay close to.

Let me see if I can explain. If I was a rope and my friend used the rope to do whatever, then one day changed and started to use a bungie rope. It's not my job to change into a bungie rope to please them. I must remain the rope that I have always been and, as they grow, they will see and understand why I stayed as the rope and did not follow, bend, or break from who I am. I have seen many come and go, and one thing they all have in common is, in the end, they have always come back to let me know they liked the fact that I never changed. And that made me feel so good 'cause what they did not know was I contemplated change.

There is no greater reward in life than to know you did something that mattered! And being who I am mattered!

Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

Your friend,
Calvin
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