Everything I Needed To Know I Learned in Prison: Living In Reality

It was 1991, I was 20 years old and I was headed to prison.

I had thought my life was normal. I was just like everyone else, or thye were just like me. I had a loving mother, an absent father - an abusive alcoholic step dad. What could be more normal than that?

I was only two years into this adulthood, but "growing up" had prepared me for the real world. Right?

Yeah, I thought I was unique. I harbored a secret fantasy life. I couldn't tell anyone because they wouldn't understand - they were not unique like me.

And my feelings? They had to be the same as everyone else. Our very culture teaches us to go by our feelings and that if it feels then just do it.

I may not have finished high school but I garnered this much: I was born in the land of the free - free to do what I wanted.

But prison?

I was told not to trust anyone in prison. But I could trust myself? My feelings?

Prison is a crucible.

As I was using my sexual lifestyle for survival and comfort the heat began to reveal my life in a different light, causing me to realize that I couldn't trust myself or my feelings. That I had been lied to. And that I was responsible because I continued to believe those lies, I lived them.

Then I had a Turning Point that not only made me realize that freedom is not doing what "I" wanted, but to do what was right, but I also realized that I needed to begin Living In Reality (because) Everything I Needed To Know I Learned in Prison.