Have you ever woke up one morning and felt tired, exhausted, humiliated, embarrassed, and small? I have! I have now been incarcerated over 15 years and approximately 11 years into my 17 year 11 month sentence “I woke up” with a realization: not only did I have to be different, but I had to do something different in order to be different. 

My entire life, I never cared who I hurt. That was easy for me because I didn’t have to care about anyone but myself. Through my incarceration, I continued with the same attitude and did a lot of the same things that landed me in prison to begin with: lie, steal, cheat, and deceive. When I was sentenced to the department of rehabilitation and corrections I always assumed that the rehabilitation process would come around eventually. I just had no idea where and when.