Phase Two-Week Five

It's been 33 days since Ron was released from Taft, 17 days since he left the halfway house. In some respects it seems he was never gone, in other ways time is moving very slowly. When Ron was incarcerated I had multiple ways of counting the time, as did he. One obvious way was my calendar, which I marked off each day. The other way I counted was with my jelly bean jar. My jelly beans are all gone, and I have not even thought about marking off my calendar in weeks. In fact, I haven't even looked at the date on the calendar. He's home, and marking time is no longer something I think about doing. We were driving somewhere last week (along the coast, Ron's favorite drive) and Ron mentioned to me how slowly he thought time was going. Since his return we have been busy from morning until evening working, driving, organizing, talking, planning. We collapse into bed each night, and except for the one or two calls from the halfway house that awaken us each night, we both are sleeping pretty well.

Ron is excited. He's working hard to return to work. His mind is finally free from fear and he has renewed energy and excitement about getting into business. Ron plans to umpire again, little league and pony league, with his friend Buzz. This is something he dearly loves, and is just awaiting final confirmation on this activity.

Food is still constantly on his mind. He doesn't eat that much, but he wants to try everything, every new restaurant, every kind of food that he's missed for the past 19 months. We've been eating out a lot. Two of our friends bought us gift certificates to Ruth's Chris and Flemmings. We are going to use those soon. I look forward to that.

The constant phone calls and the calling in that Ron has to do twice a day are constant reminders that he must be accountable. It's a small price to pay for freedom. It's a big pain for him to have to drive down to the halfway house twice a week for his lifestyles class and his meeting with his counselor, but it sure beats the alternative. They have been very accomodating and have now scheduled what was two trips, to only one. That makes it a bit easier, and in a few weeks, this will all be behind us. In the meantime, Ron is diligently making his weekly schedules so that the halfway house knows where he is at all times. Sunday night we were having dinner with some new friends when we had to rush home to make Ron's 6:30pm curfew. And yes, they do check. Someone came to our house at 8:35am last week to make sure Ron was here, as he's not supposed to leave until 9am. He was here. They can check all they want. He's always where he's supposed to be.