Part 3 — The Quiet Roads Back to Myself
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of “going back.”
People on the outside love saying things like, “When you get out, you can just pick up where you left off.” They say it like life is a movie you paused a decade ago and can just press play on again. But the truth is, there’s no going back. Not for me. Not for anyone who’s spent years staring at the same walls, breathing recycled air, navigating a world built on routine and survival.
You don’t go back — you go forward.
Even if that forward is slow.
Even if it’s messy.
Even if half the time you’re feeling your way through the dark.
That’s what this phase of my life feels like.
Not a return.
A rebuilding.
And rebuilding takes patience in a world that hasn’t shown me patience in a long, long time.
The First Time I Saw Myself Again
There are mirrors in here, but they’re not the kind of mirrors you find at home. They’re metal sheets polished just enough to give you a vague outline. A shadow of your own face. A reminder you still have a body, even when the world treats you like a number.
For years, I avoided them.
Not because I was afraid of looking older — though that stings sometimes — but because I didn’t want to see the version of myself I had become. Guilt changes your reflection. Shame stands behind your shoulder like a ghost. Regret carves lines into you that have nothing to do with age.
But one morning, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, I leaned in. I really looked.
And there he was — me, but not the me I remembered.
His eyes were tired but clearer. His jaw set differently. His posture straighter. There was weight on his shoulders, yes, but also something else I hadn’t seen in years:
Conviction.
Not pride. Not arrogance. Not denial. Just a quiet, steady decision to keep going.
It wasn’t a dramatic moment. No music. No spotlight. Just me and a metal sheet on the wall. But in that small moment, something shifted.
I realized I didn’t hate myself anymore.
Not completely, anyway.
Healing doesn’t start with forgiveness.
It starts with honesty.
And for the first time in my life, I looked myself in the eye and didn’t look away.
Learning to Walk Without Fear
There’s a kind of survival mode you learn in here. It’s not the kind of fear people imagine — panic, trembling, constant danger. It’s quieter, more exhausting. It’s feeling like you have to be ten different versions of yourself depending on who’s around.
The tough one.
The quiet one.
The helpful one.
The invisible one.
The unbreakable one.
Always shifting, always watching, always calculating.
After years of that, something strange happens: you forget who you actually are. All the masks start blending together, and you lose the original face underneath.
But lately…
I’ve been practicing walking without masks.
Not bravely. Not boldly. Just honestly.
I started small. I stopped pretending I wasn’t sad on the days grief pulled me under. I stopped laughing at jokes that didn’t feel right. I stopped nodding along when someone expected me to agree with something I no longer believed.
And slowly — painfully — I started reclaiming pieces of myself I thought were dead.
Empathy.
Boundaries.
Hope.
Softness.
Dreams that don’t embarrass me to say out loud anymore.
I won’t lie — honesty is dangerous here. Vulnerability can be seen as weakness. But I learned something unexpected:
People respond to authenticity like thirsty plants respond to water.
Some of the hardest men in here — men who’ve been through things I can’t even imagine — started opening up too. Just a little. Just enough to remind me that beneath every hardened exterior is a story no one bothered to understand.
Maybe healing isn’t something you do alone.
Maybe it’s something we give each other — tiny piece by tiny piece — until we all become more human again.
Letters That Save Me
I’ve said before that the quiet moments change you. But there’s another kind of moment that hits just as hard — the ones where your name gets called at mail time.
There’s something sacred about a letter in prison. Not the paper itself — not the ink, the stamp, the cramped handwriting. It’s the fact that someone took part of their day to sit down and think of you. To choose words with care. To reach through walls you can’t escape and remind you that you’re not forgotten.
My fiancée writes me like that.
Sometimes her letters are long, filled with stories and dreams and mundane little details of life on the outside. Sometimes they’re short, just a few sentences telling me she loves me or misses me or is proud of me.
But every one of them is a lifeline.
Every one of them keeps my heart beating.
She doesn’t realize it, but on the days I want to give up, her handwriting pulls me back.
And then there are the letters from strangers — people who read my blog, people who saw themselves in my story, people who said my words made them feel less alone. I never expected that. I never imagined my pain could be useful to anyone else.
But maybe that’s what healing is too — turning your wounds into something that lights someone else’s path.
I still keep every letter.
Every word.
Every reminder that love doesn’t die in the dark.
The Weight of Time
People think the hardest part of prison is losing freedom. But the real hardest part — the part no one prepares you for — is losing time.
Time is the most brutal thief. Slow. Silent. Precise.
It takes everything from you in tiny pieces, so tiny you don’t notice at first. Then one day you look back and realize everything has changed without you.
Friends who once promised to visit slowly stop writing.
Family members grow older while you stay frozen.
The world moves forward, faster and faster, and you stay caught in yesterday.
I’ve missed birthdays, funerals, graduations, countless family moments. My nieces and nephews have grown into adults I barely know. The world outside has transformed so much that sometimes I don’t even know what to picture anymore.
But here’s the strange thing:
Time also gives you something — perspective.
When you’ve had years to sit with yourself, to peel away every excuse, every lie, every version of the truth you used to protect yourself, you start to understand things differently.
You see who you were.
Who you hurt.
Who you could have been.
And who you still might become.
Perspective is painful. But it’s also freeing.
It taught me that while I lost years, I didn’t lose the ability to change the ones ahead of me.
Time took a lot from me.
But it also gave me clarity — the kind that only comes from breaking, healing, breaking again, and choosing to keep healing anyway.
Looking at My Dad’s Legacy Through New Eyes
I think about my dad a lot.
More now than ever before.
When I was young, I didn’t appreciate him. Didn’t understand the way he was trying to raise me, or how hard he worked to keep everything together. I didn’t see the fear behind his lessons — fear that I’d fall into the same mistakes his own father made. Fear that the world would chew me up if he didn’t toughen me first.
But I get it now.
I see myself in some of the things he said, some of the ways he tried to guide me. I hear his voice in moments where I want to quit. And I feel his presence in the choices I’m making now — not to be perfect, but to be accountable. To be better than I was.
I wish I could talk to him.
Tell him I understand.
Tell him I’m sorry.
Tell him I’m trying.
His death didn’t just hurt me — it changed me. It made me realize that forgiveness doesn’t always come from someone else. Sometimes it has to come from within.
I carry him with me in the quiet moments.
The way he said my name.
The way he looked at me when I disappointed him.
The way he hugged me when I succeeded.
He lives in the man I’m becoming.
A Future I Can Almost Touch
There’s a strange feeling that comes when your release date gets close enough to see it on the calendar. Not soon, maybe — but real. Tangible. A date instead of a dream.
For years, freedom was a fantasy I didn’t dare picture. It hurt too much. It was like trying to imagine the taste of food you’ve never had. Just an idea, nothing more.
But lately… freedom feels different.
It feels like sunlight I can finally feel on my skin instead of just imagining.
It feels like a door I’m walking toward instead of one that keeps sliding further away.
I started planning small things — things most people take for granted.
My first meal.
My first real walk without walls on either side.
The first time I hold my fiancée without a guard watching.
The first morning I wake up without an alarm telling me it’s time to move.
I know freedom won’t be easy.
I know the world won’t suddenly embrace me with open arms.
But I also know something I didn’t know before:
I’m ready.
Not perfect.
Not finished.
Not fully healed.
But ready to keep healing in a world that has more than one kind of sky.
What I Want to Give Back
I used to think giving back meant doing something huge. Something flashy. Something that proved to the world I wasn’t the person they thought I was.
But now?
I think giving back is simpler.
It’s showing someone younger than me that mistakes don’t have to end your story.
It’s talking someone away from the edge on their darkest night because I know what that edge feels like.
It’s sitting with someone who’s grieving and letting them cry without judging them.
It’s writing these words — not because I’m wise, but because I’m honest.
If I can help one person choose life on a night they want to give up…
If I can help one person forgive themselves enough to try again…
If I can help one person feel less ashamed of their past…
Then maybe the worst parts of my life won’t be meaningless.
Maybe the years I lost can be transformed into years someone else doesn’t have to lose.
Maybe that’s my purpose.
Not redemption.
Not erasing what happened.
But transforming it.
Using it.
Offering it.
The Nights That Still Break Me
I won’t pretend I’m past everything. I’m not. And I doubt I ever will be completely.
There are still nights where the silence is too loud.
Nights where I miss my dad so much my chest aches.
Nights where I feel guilty for the ways I hurt people, even unintentionally.
Nights where I wonder if the world will really give me a chance — or if all of this healing will mean nothing when I step outside.
And on those nights, everything feels heavy again.
But the difference now is that I don’t break alone.
I don’t sit in darkness without a rope to hold.
I don’t spiral without a way back.
I’ve built a life raft out of the people who love me, the lessons I’ve learned, the growth I’ve fought for, the mistakes I refuse to let define me.
I still break.
But I don’t stay broken.
That’s the difference time gave me.
Not healing, but resilience.
The Man I’m Becoming
If you’d asked me ten years ago who I was, I would’ve told you a list of things I thought made up a man:
Toughness.
Reputation.
Survival.
Control.
Strength without softness.
Now?
Now I see it differently.
A real man, at least the kind I want to be, is someone who:
Admits when he’s wrong.
Apologizes without excuses.
Loves without fear.
Protects without dominating.
Leads without forcing.
Feels without shame.
Learns without ego.
Grows without needing applause.
The man I’m becoming isn’t impressive. He’s real.
And for the first time in my life, real feels enough.
What I Promise Myself
I don’t make many promises anymore. Life taught me how easily promises can break, how easily circumstances can swallow even the strongest intentions.
But there are a few promises I do make — ones I intend to keep.
I will not waste the rest of my life.
I will not let fear decide my future.
I will not allow my past to chain me.
I will not give up on people who feel lost.
I will not stop loving the woman who saved me.
I will not stop becoming the best version of myself I can be.
Not perfect.
Just better.
Every day.
Every choice.
Every quiet moment where no one sees the effort but me.
Thank You — For Walking With Me This Far
If you’re still reading this…
If you’ve followed me through the dark and the messy and the painful and the hopeful…
Thank you.
You’re part of my healing.
Part of my journey.
Part of the reason I wake up and write instead of shutting down and disappearing.
Your presence reminds me that connection can happen even through walls.
That empathy doesn’t need sunlight.
That strangers can become lifelines.
I don’t know what Part 4 of my life will look like.
Maybe it’ll be brighter.
Maybe it’ll be complicated.
Maybe it’ll hurt in new ways and heal in new ways too.
But I know this:
I won’t walk into it alone.
Not while you’re here.
Not while she’s waiting for me.
Not while I’m still breathing and trying and refusing to give up.
My story isn’t over.
And maybe — just maybe — neither is yours.
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