Finished!

Finally, the report (on the state of health care and mental health care services in Michigan’s prisons from the perspective of advocates, activists, and the people inside the prisons) is finished. Done—dropped it off at the printer yesterday at 4:15. Right after I left it there, I went and treated myself to soy chai and a blueberry muffin at zingerman’s. Then I walked over to kk’s office and climbed the stairs to her attic.

Luckily, I saw her director out of the corner of my eye; before kk’s eyes hit mine. Cause, if I had seen k first, I would have started weeping, and I would not have been able to stop.

The completion of this report is a big deal for many reasons.
1.We have been working on it for over three years.
2.The intensive writing piece of it has been going on for the last nine months. The thing has been edited and re-edited by multiple people and then I’ve waited on some people’s edits and contributions and whole sections and they never sent them. Writing in coalition is like pulling one’s teeth out with a wrench. I have spent countless, sleepless nights pondering this thing and tossing and turning with anxiety over it.
3. My good friend, A, was contracted on this thing to write (she became my good friend through the prison activism work we were both doing, but then she moved on to something else) and now this monster will no longer haunt her days.
4. Hopefully, the contents of the report will lend itself to real changes in policies so that people in prison in MI will benefit and be able to grow healthier in mind and body before coming back to the free-world.

A, R, KK, and I went out to celebrate the completion of this 125 page, 11 point font, single spaced beast last night. Three of us drank yummy martinis (ginger, lime ones—so spicy for winter); we ate delicious food and basked in the glory of being done with it!