'A friend of mine, who has only been locked up a couple of years, asks me the same question from time to time. She's a very exuberant person. A jolly PTA mom, who is accustomed to being in charge. So when she grows pensive and still and leans in to talk quietly, I know a big question is coming.

'Tell me the truth,' she always begins. 'Do you find it hard to deal with people like me?'

The first time she posed this question, my eyebrows shot to the ceiling--people like her? Did she mean overgrown puppy dogs? Exasperating? Easily bruised? Talk nonstop? 'Ah,' I hedge, 'Er--what do you mean, 'people like you?''

'You know, who've only done a couple of years--I'm always being told by long-termers that I don't know anything.' She says it matter of factly, but I can tell the words have cut her and it makes me really angry.

'People like you are totally annoying,' I casually respond. 'All that passion and energy disrupts my rut.

'And,' I smack the table, 'it really irks me that you aren't all flat and bland and prison gray.' I stand up abruptly. 'I don't even know why I talk to you--all that fresh air you blow into my stale life.'

She looks bewildered and puts out a hand to stop me from leaving. 'It's just that sometimes when I say something, some of you who've been down a while roll your eyes and say, 'Been there--done that!'

'My friend,' I sit down. 'Don't you think it's scary that there are people who after all these years are just as unteachable as the day they walked in?'

'What do you mean?'

'You've worked with teenagers,' I respond. 'Don't they think they know everything?'

'Yeah.'

'Those people who tell you they already know everything you think and experience are still teenagers.'

She laughs and nods her head but I know she doesn't believe it in her heart yet because she will repeat the question in another few months. And in another.

I hope she reads this and understands that if someone knows anything, that experienced person would encourage the best in her. We would never dream of telling children, 'Don't bother to talk--it's all been said; don't bother to walk--those steps have been taken; don't bother to grow up--I've done it already.' So why would a person of wisdom squelch the growth in any human being?

Perhaps because I am an idiot it doesn't shock me that I can learn from other people. Besides this, I enjoy the adventure of other people's thoughts: reading books, questions from seven year olds, insights from outcasts, wisdom from an officer. Nor does it alarm or surprise me that people disagree with me. Their challenges deepen and broaden my perspective.

Adding the examined life experiences of others to my mind's library offers infinite possibilities. Everyone has something unique and intriguing to offer that enlarges my life. Being closed to that possibility is long-term imprisonment to small mindedness." (Elizabeth Haysom, Fluvanna Review, January 15, 2003).

Elizabeth Haysom is presently incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia. She is serving a 90 year sentence as an accessory to the murder of her parents in 1985. This column was first printed as part of a series, under the general heading 'Glimpses from Inside.'