Behind Bars to Reaching for the Stars

This time in my life has been filled with pivotal moments, and in these moments of clarity, I found new perspectives and opportunities to change my life. This last year, a 6-month prison sentence forced me to sit down, sober up, and reflect on my life; and all the factors that played into why I was there and who I had become along the way. I had lost touch with who I was, but knew that deep down I am good, and that I was going to do everything in my power to get back to the basics. Sitting in my prison blues, I knew that this life wasn’t for me and that this wasn’t who I was going to be for the rest of my life. From then on, I was motivated to change my present, repair my past, and create a future life that I deserved to live and a future self-deserving of the love of my present and future loved ones.

My most celebrated characteristics and attributes of my identity, those that influenced my core values, moral code, and personal motivations, were instilled in me from a young age by my mother and later refined by my stepfather. I am aware that parents aren’t considered forebears, but the limited knowledge I have of my ancestors makes it hard for me to understand their role in my identity. I can only infer that their journey to this country and on the Oregon trail, in search of religious freedom and a better life, was difficult. Their struggle, lack of privilege, and minimal exposure to racist and southern influence, is why my grandparents never got stuck in their generation’s way of thinking and didn’t impose those ignorant beliefs onto my mother and therefore onto me. My mother was very aware; especially when it to came generational curses and ending the cycles of violence, she showed us that you don’t have to become a victim of your circumstances and that you are responsible to heal from past traumas, so that you don’t inflict the same damage onto the next generation, and so on and so on. She was an emotionally driven person, not in the hysterical way, but she was heavily influenced by her empathy, and felt the need to always help even at the cost of herself. Which is present in my life as well, my strong empathy and the feelings associated with it, influencing and blinding my decision making. My stepfather was more disciplined, logical, and realistic, which my naive perspective as a child viewed as cold, jaded, and unreasonable. He gave me so much knowledge through correction of my errors in thinking and speaking, he taught me what manipulation was, importance of accountability, decisions resulting in consequences (good and bad), disciplining emotions, proper communication (verbal, non-verbal), and so much more that influenced my way of thinking and decision making to this day. My integrity, respect, and mentality were molded by him, he gave me tools that I used in my journey to sobriety and to insight change in myself. They both had major roles in the making of who I am in my present and who I will be in the future, even though they haven’t had an active role in my life for years. My mother passed away, and after that my stepdad relinquished his role, and as a result of that pain and lack of support/structure, I responded the wrong way. Looking back, I know I could’ve made better decisions, and instead of using my past as an excuse for my present/future, I use it to understand and improve, making goods from the bads with a positive mindset.

I was born in Honolulu, HI, and although we were a haole family, we lived with an Aloha spirit, and my mother was big on respecting and celebrating cultures, especially those that were native to where we lived. She was a granola, and heavily influenced by her love for nature and environmental awareness. Nature’s role was always present in my life, not just in my surroundings but in day-to-day activities; even in my fondest memories; gardening with my mother, hiking and exploring, etc. When we left Hawaii, we moved to Sitka, Alaska, another island that’s closed off from the mainland and surrounded by nature that was actively present in and influenced our lives. While living here, I was older, and so my memory serves me better and the connections I made while here resonate deeper into the present. By this time, we learned that if we take care of the earth, it will take care and provide for us, and that when we went hunting, fishing, or gathered berries for jam, you did it without littering or damaging your surroundings, and that you always were to give thanks. My stepfather was raised in Mcgrath and was the only white family there at the time, so he learned a lot about and respected the ways of the natives and applied that knowledge and respect to the people and their culture that present where he lived, which he passed along to us. I don’t want to sound like a cultural appropriator, but my ancestral and cultural influence was never that of my own. We never adopted these practices as our own, and we recognized and celebrated where/who we received them from. Once I left Alaska, I moved to Houston, Texas, and brought along with me these beliefs. I remember how appalled I was the first time I experienced a friend of mine littering out the window of their car, and their surprise and disgust when I proceeded to exit the vehicle and pick up the trash to dispose of it in the nearby trash can. They justified their actions, and their rebuttal was that “everyone does it”, and there is no nature or wildlife around to be impacted. I explained that our environment is all connected, and that the damage here is damaging to the whole earth. Nonetheless, he insisted I was a “weirdo”, and I was convinced that it must be a lack of knowledge that creates acts of ignorance. 

Moving to Texas, especially Houston, not only introduced new challenges inciting growth, but new experiences and new perspectives as well. This is where I learned a lot of necessary things in unnecessarily hard ways, due to my stubbornness and naivety. My childhood was sheltered, not in the sense that I was protected from trauma or that it was easy, but it was sheltered from reality. I had never really experienced the real world, yes, I had been living on my own and experienced real responsibility and hardships, but I had yet to experience just how REALly ugly the world is. I was ignorant, not small-minded hick ignorant, but I found comfort in my positive sugar coded view of the world and people, because it was easier than accepting that people are capable of awful things. I was fearful of becoming jaded and seeing/expecting the worst in the world and people. That if I made a decision based on one bad experience, like not helping or trusting others due to the wrong person taking advantage of that kindness in the past, that I would have let the shitty world make me shitty. Now that I have experienced this reality check, I am set on still combatting the bad with acts of good, but that I will do so in a role that protects me and isn’t limited to my personal resources. That is why I have decided on a career path in social work. I want to be able to impact people’s lives positively and help them grow and change in the face of adversity.

My initial interest in the field of social work, stemmed from seeing my mother working in the field, and the impact and importance of those roles being held by people who really care about others and the cause. I personally have experienced the effects of social workers who don’t care about the people they’re dealing with while incarcerated and even while in the free world, it is upsetting that the prison population and ex-convicts are viewed as less than and treated as so. If they’re not given the proper support and care, it increases their likelihood of recidivism. Probation, supervision, even incarceration argues that these are put in place to combat crime, but in my experience they do more to increase these rates when implemented as is and even more so when practiced/enforced by people who don’t care. I know that with my criminal record, I won’t be able to work in these roles firsthand, but I would like to still focus my attention on social justice. My plan is to earn my master’s degree, and become a LCSW in private practice, but along the way work as an advocate for felons and prison reform and with those struggling with addiction. I think that my personal experience with both incarceration and addiction, will give me an edge in this field, not just by motivating me to give the best care to those I work with, but also connecting with them through mutual experiences and showing them that they can overcome these things by example. 

Charles Bradley “Changes” (OFFICIAL VIDEO) – YouTube

^^ I intended to have this song auto play, but I wasn’t able to figure it out, so here is a link to listen to it instead.