Expecting Little

My expectations were simple once. I wanted to have a piece of land in the woods and a home to call my own. A wife and family. Money enough to pay for it all and some left over for fun. There was never enough money to pay for fun and all else got lost in the pursuit. Jobs came and went that couldn't pay the bills and support my growing demand for drugs and alcohol. Even during work I needed to be high so work would be fun.

Today I'm a prisoner and my expectations are few. It's best not to expect much in prison because you are not likely to get much. I've seen prisoners drive themselves to distraction by visions of parole dancing in their heads. It never came. They didn't notice because they had gotten hooked on the chase. As for me, the most I expect is a kind word and a smile form time to time; maybe a letter to lift my spirits and some books to while away the hours and make the days go by.

My biggest expectation is little more than will-of-the-wisp. It's my one concession to strive for the impossible. I want to see my book published. On more confident days I dream of multiple published books with my name on the cover. Those are days when all things seem possible. One is written and I work on the second knowing publications is the longest of long shots, like buying a lottery ticket, and may never be worth the expense and effort. Yet, I hope my words will remain when I am no more to say I existed.

Prisoners are a group have les hope (what is hope but expectations) than most: The most time they have to do the less they have to hope for. Every sentence brings death to some part of a persons life. The body may outlive the sentence, but what life will be left? You can hardly expect family, friends, loved ones, to not be lost to your time in prison. They move on, you stagnate. In the end you don't know each other. Prison is about the loss of all you hold dear. If you are not careful you can even lose yourself. I quit expecting much after I lost everything and have more today than at any time in my fourteen years incarcerated in Texas prison. There are friends who care about me and want to see my writing succeed. There is a bit of money regularly that supplies my simple needs for typewriter ribbons, stamps and tea. Even extra for a splurge on junk food. I have a radio after twelve years without one and a typewriter I never could barely hope for. Sometimes I think I've come to expect too much and I fear the day when I have to learn to live on nothing again. A prisoner's existence is at best tenuous. I find myself expecting the worst and seldom being let down.

To expect too much is to allow yourself to be made angry. Should I expect my food to be served hot and handled hygienically? Might I expect sympathy from my captors, just a tiny bit of compassion? Would it be too much to ask that guards are as willing to break the rules to help prisoners help each other by passing books as they are to break them to make their jobs easier when they mishandle my food? I've given up on expecting any of these and sometimes have the pleasure of being surprised. In expecting little I gain much by relieving the stress of my incarceration and have actually found more reasons to smile than when I expected much and only got my heart broken.

-Daniel H. Harris