Sometimes, I just have to sit and contemplate life. That is what I'm doing right now. I'm considering my situation in this dark, drafty cell. Some of it is anxiety. A lot of it is what my daughter would call maladaptive daydreaming.

My thoughts turn to her often. Despite my incarceration, she is my best friend. We talk on the phone daily—frequently, more than once. I get a better feel for when she wants to talk or doesn’t want to as she gets older. On those days that she doesn't, she says so, and I call some other time again.

Most days, though, our conversations are quite lively. Almost nothing is off limits. She's very forthcoming. Sometimes, I feel like I'm so deep undercover that I have to remind myself not to encourage anything too wild. I know most of the shenanigans she contemplates, the dynamics of her friend group, and even the names of the boys she likes.

Another thing that I know is that she hates math with the passion of a thousand suns. I'm extremely hesitant to even utter the word “math” in conversation with her. I know that when she does come to see me, my chances of escape from a prison visiting room are very slim. The only thing I’ll be eating at that visit is a knuckle sandwich, and she will make me plenty, one for each time I even said the word math. It makes me flinch instinctively, even when we are on the phone! I must be strategic and deliberate when broaching this delicate topic.

Notwithstanding that, the m-word got brought up in last night’s conversation. After I listened to her talk about her day, I started talking about mine. I told her that I was stuck on a problem. Something strange happened after that. She was fine with me talking about it.

This led me to give her a very hand-wavy explanation of what an integral is. I was only two minutes into it before the automated system informed us that our call was almost over. What happened next left me so effervescent that I thought my head would explode. Before we hung up, she told me that my "math thing"was cool!

Dumbfounded, I hung up the phone. I called back just to ask her what she said. Yep, I had heard right. My math thing is cool! I strutted the entire day after that. Some guy asked what was up with me, and all I could say was “MY MATH THING IS COOL!” It's good that people already think I'm weird.

But what is best about “my math thing” is knowing that my change isn't taking place in a vacuum. By corollary, that knowledge is a reminder that my actions affect real people in real time, especially my little one. This is a big deal to me. I can't undo the damage I've already caused, but I will not let this keep me away from what I can do now.