Joey: So there was this one client that I used to work with and he was incarcerated for a really long time and he was about to be getting out in a couple years and it was right when I first started coming on that I started working with him. And he was always kind of wary of me. He wasn’t really that into meeting with guys, or whatever.
And so, Rob and I actually went to go visit him in prison before he got out and I remember Rob was telling me on the way back home that this client had told Rob, “Oh I thought Joey was going to be really macho and he wasn’t and I love that about him.” And I’ve worked with him since then and I think that he’s—I really appreciate that he was able to share that. I was a little offended at the time but it also made a lot of sense.
I think just that day, too, of going to see someone in prison and spending four hours with him in that environment and giving him that escape from the day-to-day existence of being in prison. That was really meaningful to me and it was nice to be there with Rob—because Rob had known him for a really long time too so it was nice that that relationship kind of got passed down to me and that we were really able to establish a supportive relationship for him for when he got out.
When he got out, too, I spent two days with him—that client—and that was also a really special time for me. I mean, that was like—just to be there in that space, after someone who was in jail for I think, 13 years? Maybe 12 years. To have them experience their first moments of being out after that long and to hold that space for them during that time, it was just really special. And I’ll always remember that.
