I spent the first six months of 2008 in the Greene county jail and the next six in and out of programs and institutions trying to get all my ducks in a row. I lost my girlfriend of four years and I lost my home and almost all my possessions. At one point I just wanted to cry and at another point I just wanted to lash out and hurt everyone who had left me deserted in those cold cells to rot. I’ve gone through points where I didn’t want to do anything at all and I’ve gone through times when it seemed like no matter what I did I could not fill the hole in my heart. There were days when I felt like a ghost in a graveyard and moments when I would just sit at home in the dark and do nothing but drink cheap beer and wallow in defeat. I felt like I was defeated by life and I didn’t know how I wanted to proceed. Who will hire a convicted felon, and who will believe me now, I have said plenty of times before that this is the time for change but I always remained the same.
I sacrificed so much to ensure that things were taken care of at home and I risked it all not even knowing what I had then. Looking back I was a fool, but not for trusting someone but just for the fool hearted mistakes I made. Six months confined with your thoughts will put your whole life into perspective and somewhere between the third and fourth month in jail I decided that this time would be different. I decided that with or without help or possessions I would overcome. I was released from jail on June the 29th after being whittled down and humbled in isolation. It was blue skies that day and it seemed like every breath I took inflated not only my lungs but also my spirits, I was free again. It had been nearly three weeks since I had received a letter or a visit and so I didn’t really know where I wanted to go first but my heart led my directly to my loves house. The last time we had spoken to one another I had told her that I was probably going to prison and that I would be released sometime after thanksgiving and so my presence that day was sure to be a welcome surprise. My chest thumped at what felt like a thousand beats a minute, as I approached the front door, but I didn’t know what to expect, even as I knocked on the door, I prayed. For the last few months I thought about how I had spent at least a year of the past three years locked up. My lifestyle never really bothered me before I knew her but over time I realized that she suffered a great deal because of my stupidity. So as I knocked I was nervous, even though every letter I did receive told me that she loved me above all, I just hoped that it was still true. When she opened the door, her eyes sparked to life and her smile stretched from one ear to the other. I was overwhelmed with emotion and it took nearly all my strength to keep from stumbling backwards off the front porch as she rushed into my arms again.