HIBAPRESS – Yassin Al-Dhamiri
After twenty years of life inside the cell, a strange feeling began to creep into me, a feeling I hadn't known since the moment I entered this place, a feeling of potential freedom, the idea that the days I would spend in this place were nearing their end, and that the outside world might be closer than I imagined.
It wasn't just a distant dream, but a gradual feeling that grew with me slowly during the last few weeks, a feeling that made my heart race in a way I was no longer accustomed to after all these years of patience and endurance.
At first, the feeling was frightening; twenty years inside the cell is not just a number of days, but a complete life, a life full of habits, routine, restrictions, and difficulties. How can a person be free after all this time?
I felt intense tension, a mixture of fear, curiosity, and longing for what I had lost, a feeling that freedom is not just a step outside, but a new test of everything I learned internally.
I began to think of freedom as an idea, as a possibility, and compare it to my previous life before prison. Twenty years ago, I was a young man full of strength and emotion, I lived every moment with a keen sense, and I faced events with youthful impetuosity. But now, after long years of experience, I have gained inner maturity, psychological strength, patience, adaptability, and a deep understanding of myself, but is all this enough to face a completely new world outside the prison walls?
I used to sit for hours thinking about the things I would face. The first thing that came to my mind was society, people, family, old colleagues, technology, small changes in the streets, shops, and means of communication.
I felt that the world I would enter was no longer as I had left it decades ago, a feeling of strangeness before I took my first steps, but at the same time, there was a feeling of hope, a sense that freedom, no matter how difficult, would be an opportunity to rediscover myself, to repair what could be repaired, and to search for a new life after all these years of suffering.
The psychological preparations were very difficult. I couldn't rely on any previous experience, because I lived all the past years in the confines of the cell, and I learned nothing in it but patience, endurance, and internal adaptation, but freedom requires more than that, it needs courage to face the strangeness, awareness to deal with the new society, and strength to build a different life after many years of isolation.
I felt for the first time that I had to prepare myself psychologically before physically, and that any mistake in thinking could make my first steps outside the prison more difficult than I imagined.
I began to write down all my fears and thoughts in my mind, trying to arrange them, analyze them, and deal with them one by one. I felt that just writing down every inner feeling gave me a feeling of control, a feeling that I was able to face this new stage in a conscious way.
The idea of freedom, which seems simple from the outside, was a very complex experience internally, because it was not just a physical exit, but an exit from an experience that lasted for two decades, an experience that changed my personality, my mind, and my soul.
As the days passed, the feeling of potential freedom began to turn into motivation. I felt that this last stage inside the cell could be used more, as an opportunity to prepare myself for the next step. I began to review every daily routine, trying to make use of every moment, every interaction, every small activity inside the cell as a lesson to prepare myself for freedom. I felt that the strength I had gained over the past years could be a way to rebuild my life from scratch.
But with all these feelings, there was a natural hesitation. How would I deal with the family? Would my two daughters or my old friends welcome me in the same way? What about the society that might reject a person who has spent twenty years in prison?
All these questions made me feel anxious, a feeling that contradicts enthusiasm, a feeling that makes every day inside the cell more important than ever, because I was living the experience of preparing myself psychologically and spiritually before any physical exit.
Daily meditation became an essential part of my preparation. I used to sit for hours thinking about myself, my past life, what I had lost, and what I could achieve. For the first time, I felt that freedom is not just a place or time, but an internal state, a feeling of the ability to face everything new with inner peace and mental readiness. Every small experience inside the cell became part of this preparation, of the ability to control myself even in the face of the unknown.
The friendships and alliances I built also helped me deal with the feeling of potential freedom. My colleagues, who became close friends, shared some of their thoughts with me, supported each other in understanding this final stage. The feeling that we all share fear and hope at the same time, I felt that the collective experience, even in the moment of psychological isolation, gives you extra strength to face the unknown.
In the end, I felt for the first time that potential freedom is not just a distant dream, but a stage that requires deep psychological and mental preparation, a contradictory feeling between enthusiasm and fear, between hope and anxiety, between longing for the past and looking forward to the future.
I felt that this moment, a few months before leaving, is the most important in my life inside the cell, a moment in which I learned that true freedom begins from within before it begins from without, and that any step outside the walls needs inner strength, awareness, and the maturity that I have built during all these years.
-To be continued-
