Marteze Harris #161543
Waupun Correctional Institution
Post Office Box 351
Waupun, Wisconsin
53963

Tuesday, January 15th, 2013

Turning 40

Before I begin my blogs for the 2013 year, I would like to wish everyone a safe, happy and blessed New Year's. Try to treat your neighbours, family, associates and strangers with the respect and care due them. Now with that said, my first blogs in 6 months. Yeah!!!!! A friend of mine asked why I hadn't blogged in a while? Well, Ms. Allie, I hope that these two blogs are worthy of your praise! :)

On November 10th, I turned 40 years old! I sat there on that Saturday, in amazement, feeling both blessed and awed this momentous occasion. Within these walls now younger prisoners call me "school" (meaning: ol' school, someone with age on them), and just the other day I told one of them, "don't call me "school," I ain't no old ass man, yet!" He however, explained to me that "school" is a sign of respect. I never thought of it that way, and that made me change my outlook on the endearment. It didn't sting so badly after that. How shallow we become so quickly.

I can remember back in the day, when I was a younger man, Prince had a song called, "Party Like It's 1999." Does anyone remember that song? Anyways, I remember thinking back then, 1999, seemed aeons away, never to be seen in our lifetime. Now here were are, 2013, WOW! Really, 2013!!! Now 1999, seems a million years ago- go figure. Sometimes it seems like my childhood was just yesterday, I can remember so vividly things I did as a teen and then it hits me, that was 20 - 25 years ago. Where did all that time go. The memories are there, all the aches from basketball I feel, I don't move like I used to. Things feel the same mentally, in my mind I still have all that mobility, but physically I just don't have prowess and agility I did when I was 25, hell even 35. Basketball injuries have slowed me down some, don't get me wrong I still do my thing on the basketball court, but not as well as I used to.

So what is it about 40 for me, that has me so discombobulated? There is much ado within my person about this milestone, and I come to the conclusion that I never expected to live this long. And now that I have I'm perplexed sometimes as you what my life will become. I am anxious to begin this new chapter in my life cycle and see if I can be an even better person.

It is not an exact science "but" I honestly believe that had I not spent the last 17 years incarcerated, I would be dead. Seriously, I am not sanguine about my prospects had I not been incarcerated. My life had derailed, deteriorated and I was a utter mess. I was in absolute chaos, God, had to see something in me worthy of redemption. That is the only explanation I have for my still being on the top side of the soil. Had my demise happened in my teen or young adult years nobody would have been shocked, and none definitely would have mourned my passing, with the exception of my mother. There was no constant in my life after my mother passed, I was spiritually, mentally and emotionally dead. My road to redemption has been slow and it is a continuous work in progress, but I am alive!

I have so much living to do now, and I am anxious to live it. It is also, scary to know that I never truly planned for a future... my future. So that leaves an uncertainty within me sometimes, but God has brought me this far, I'm good.

I also wonder am I scared of getting old? I have asked this question a thousand times, part of me feels like that, but the other part of self is que sera, sera. Am I the only one that thinks like this? Wondering about growing older, dying, and all that goes with it. I believe that my greatest fear is dying in prison, alone. The uncaring and disconnectedness of dying in prison is the scariest of all, how a prisoner is treated, or I should say his body is truly a thing of horror. It may be wrong to pray for something so minuscule as where I die but I pray daily that God allows me to die a freeman. Turning 40 and living passed my self-diagnosed life-expectancy is for me one of the great mysteries of my life! :)

Everyone thought it would be a close election, I knew it wouldn't, those polls were, either a true miscalculation, or used to deceive the American people into believing Mitt Romney was winning. How could the polls be right, when they underestimated and disregarded huge portions of the electorate. The Republicans and Mitt Romneys, were so over-confident that he only wrote one speech, an acceptance speech. How stupid he must have felt and how shallow. So way to go President Obama, and may your next 4 years be even greater. Even though, I turned 40, it was a good day.

Sincerely,

Teze