Offering Yourself Wherever You Are

The first week, women and officers both tested the perimeter—waiting to see who I was.

I walked into that with the same thing I walk into everything with: a willingness to be exactly where I am.

Offering yourself to an experience doesn’t mean you approve of it. It means you show up for it fully enough that it can teach you something. The women who make it through here are the ones who decided early that this was going to be material to work with.

The alternative is to spend every day here fighting the fact that you’re here. I’ve seen what that costs.

Put your whole self into where you actually are. There is no reserve tank of life saved for better circumstances. This is it.