Pop Goes the Cork: Arrival at Albion

Uncrushed and Unintimidated

The Felonist continues her early days at Albion, still riding the shockwave of the “cork popping” healing that left her clearer, lighter, and unexpectedly connected to something bigger than herself. As she moves through Phase One, she’s writing nonstop, walking miles, praying deeply, and rediscovering her humor and problem‑solving instincts. Between beginning her work assignments, deep hunger, long talks with other women, and the grounding presence of the writings of Katharine Graham and Rita Mae Brown, she starts to feel something she hasn’t felt in nearly a year: uncrushed, unintimidated, and unexpectedly hopeful.

Pop Goes the Cork: Arrival at Albion

The Felonist arrives at Albion Correctional Facility after a brutal transport ride and steps into a women’s prison that’s calmer than Bedford but still a cage. As she tries to stay connected to Grace and navigate the unit’s dynamics, a prison healing service delivers a shocking moment—a literal pop, “like a cork,” that shifts everything. The Albion Diaries begin with fear, clarity, and an unexpected release.

Only Crazy People Eat Shit

In this episode I learn what “crazy” really means in prison. You’re not crazy if you’re playing with your shit, painting with it, acting out with it, using it to get attention or get moved. That’s coping. But if you’re eating it? That’s a different story altogether. Check the crazy box. As I’m trying to understand the mental health landscape inside a women’s prison, I start to see that Bedford isn’t the end of anything — it’s the beginning of the real work and the real sentence. I’m writing through synchronicities, shouting matches with God, the collapse of my marriage, the tiny law library victories, the fear I’ve carried since childhood, and the slow, steady shift from despair to purpose. I’m learning the difference between self‑effort and self‑punishment, between fear and faith, between surviving and actually fighting for my life. This isn’t a conclusion. It’s the moment I finally understand I’m just getting started. And then — poof — I’m gone.

The Dark Night of Self-Torment

Early August doesn’t hit me with outside blows — it turns inward. Melancholy settles in like fog, and self‑punishment becomes a daily ritual I perform without hesitation. I move through these days dissecting every thought, every failure, every imagined future, turning them into weapons and using them on myself with precision. Hope flickers, smothered by exhaustion, loneliness, and the suicidal thoughts that circle the edges of my mind. Bedford finally feels like prison — the place and the people. The walls close in, the unit grows hostile, and the waiting becomes another form of punishment. I am unraveling, haunted by phantasms of my own making. I torment myself mercilessly, inflicting a level of cruelty the system could never match. Survival becomes less about hope and more about endurance — holding on through the long, hot, airless hours until something, anything, shifts.

Beaten Bloody and On the Ropes

Late July hits me like a series of blows in a mismatched prize fight — me on the ropes, bruised, bleeding, and getting clobbered. The shock denial, the fear of being moved to another prison far away, the anniversary of my mother’s death, the collapse of my marriage, and the sudden and casual cruelty coming through the phone all land before I can brace. The synchronicities that once steadied me still flicker at the edges, but they’re drowned out by fear, grief, and the sense that staying in the current has capsized my boat and I’m sinking fast. Bedford shifts from retreat to crucible; the unit feels hostile, the waiting unbearable, the negativity suffocating. I move through the days in a haze of prayer, anger, exhaustion, and a despair so heavy it feels physical, fighting to keep any hold on myself while my mind keeps slipping toward the edge. Conversations with the few people who love me offer brief flashes of relief, but the days are thick with sorrow, confusion, and the feeling of being abandoned by almost everyone I counted on. This is the stretch where I am losing my grip, where faith flickers, where the hits come too fast to absorb, and where holding on becomes its own act of survival.