I don't know how to do this.  I don't know how to be the sister of a criminal, especially one who doesn't think he's a criminal at all.  This dichotomy is turning my insides tumultuous; how can I on one hand think he deserves to be behind bars but on the other long for him to be home, smoking on the sly in my guest room?  This experience has completely, without a doubt, changed the way I view incarceration.  I always pictured prison the way it appears on TV; crime-hardened individuals who deserved to be behind bars for longer than they probably would be, crude, uneducated men who were making society better by not being a part of it.  I never pictured the bad guys as scared little boys who cried every time they called home, young men addicted to pain medication to soothe a hurt that they can't ever fix, and can't even tell where it comes from.  Seeing my brother behind that glass, shaggy haired, scruffy-faced, eyes full of tears, but still not understanding the severity of his transgressions....I feel like I'm splintering, like my insides can't possibly stay whole.  His face makes me ache deep down inside, past the bones and right to the soul..  Who knew that, when someone is incarcerated, their whole family is torn apart?

It a biological imperative, the gut feeling that criminals are bad people that need to be put away somewhere.  It's best for the group, and therefore we are hardwired to respond aggressively to the idea that people who do bad things are bad people.  I've always agreed with this mindset, that bad guys belong somewhere away, not inflicting their poison on my reality.  Now, though, the other biological imperative that screams about family and blood and kinship and ties and connection, that link between my brother and I, is trumping the other, and it's amazing to me how strong those two imperatives are warring inside me.    I hate this.