Here we are, Year 10.

I should be dead.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, 9.9% of previously incarcerated individuals die within 6.5 years of release. The mortality rate for incarcerated individuals is reduced by 2 years for each year of incarceration. Incarceration DOUBLES the formerly incarcerated person’s mortality rate after release.

If this is true, prison cut my life expectancy by 34.5 YEARS. If my average life expectancy is 75, I should have been dead by 41.

HA! I’ll be 45 in two weeks. SUCK IT America’s bullshit excuse for a justice system.

So, while I have been busy beating the odds, I have been learning a lot as well.

Here is what I have learned during my decade of Freedom, thus far:

Lesson 1:

I am done being sorry for my incarceration. I am tired of apologizing for prison and groveling for my place in society. I deserve to be here; I deserve the chance to thrive and be successful, without apology. I am no longer being accommodating just because I feel like I owe people for my incarceration. I don’t owe anyone anything. I did the time. I endured the bullshit and the mental and emotional gymnastics it takes to survive incarceration. ME, and only me, so no, I do not owe anyone my time, my energy or my peace going forward.

Lesson 2:

The Criminal Justice Reform Community is bullshit. MOST, not all, of these groups, nonprofits and organizations are not there to help people, they are there to take from people. They want whatever you can contribute to them, politically, monetarily, and emotionally. They aren’t changemakers, they are exploiters. Look where the money comes from, check out their board members and see how many vacations, retreats, and work trips, they post on their social medias.

I have reached out to several of these groups over the years only to be met with, “what can you do for us?” These groups exploit the stories of the justice impacted only to abandon them if they do not portray the correct image. They exploit the experiences of minorities, women and children, while using the money of white male philanthropists to fund their cause. The absolute most disgusting part of this is that formerly incarcerated people are the ones doing the exploiting, SHAME ON YOU!

Lesson 3:

CUT. THEM. LOOSE. Years ago, I met this woman who convinced me that she was on my side. She was going to help me increase my employability, she was my rah-rah lady. She portrayed herself as that person to me for years. Then, YEARS LATER she tells me that during our meet & greet dinner, I said something that made her feel like I was dishonest. So, for all the years that followed, while she was busy being my champion she really wasn’t trying because she thought I was a liar. Okay, who is being dishonest now? She couldn’t even tell me what I had said that made her feel that way, but that now she had an awakening and she was sorry she didn’t help me more over the years. Okay, sure, whatever you need to tell yourself to feel better for lying to me.

I have dozens of stories about people like that who put on their Captain save a felon cape. I’m not a charity case, I am a person, who deserves the same respect and care as anyone else. Just because I was incarcerated people immediately think the worst, so no I don’t need you. I believe in me enough for myself and anyone who doubts me.

The same goes for all those people who disappeared when I had, my now ex, husband arrested and was getting divorced. “Oh, we don’t want to take a side.” But then old boy takes a plea agreement, pleads guilty and everyone is all, “Oh! He’s horrible, I can’t believe that happened to you!” Arrgh, you all suck! I was alone, scared, and in need of family and friends and you all bailed. But I let it go, because I was still in that whole, my incarceration makes me less than phase. Guess what, I haven’t forgotten you bailed on me, and you can all promptly kick rocks.

Lesson 4:

Never forget where you came from and the people who endure the same experiences after you.

With what is currently going on in the world it is shocking to me that those who are formerly incarcerated are cheering for the imprisonment and deportation of others. We know what happens when someone is incarcerated, the lack of humanity, the blatant disregard for rights, autonomy and basic respect. The biggest argument we all had was that we wanted to be treated as humans and with compassion. You know how the prison system treats American citizens who are incarcerated, so you can guess how terrible it is for those who are undocumented and imprisoned.

Yet, you sit back and cheer for the dehumanization of others. You disgust me. You, who sat in your cell and wrote kite after kite about your rights and the rules, or the ones who used the entrance as a revolving door. Yet you sit behind your keyboard and wage war on how the undocumented should not be allowed due process.

Then there are those of you who claim to be feminists, but judge people for wanting to exist in the gender they feel belongs to them. You rail on and on about women’s rights but have endless transphobia. You talk endlessly about your incarceration, yet spout racism, homophobia and hate, all while carrying your Charis bible and posting your Me and the Family church photos. Forgetting we all remember you in the bathroom with that other woman or the drugs you had shoved in you prison purse.

Hypocrisy is the true monster. If you aren’t going to use your honest story for good and to promote positive change, do the rest of us a favor and shut up.

Lesson 5

I frequently say that I have the patience of a preschool teacher. Its true, I am usually fairly patient. I am good at standing in line at the airport, since I am disqualified from having TSA. I can make it through Atlanta traffic without throwing myself in front of a car, I can even skip ordering through Amazon Prime and wait weeks for things to be delivered.

As someone who waited decades to vote, travel, be an adult, and obtain their freedom, I have oodles of patience. What I am short of these days is tolerance.

I will not tolerate disrespect.

For the longest time, I had to just shut up and swallow smart mouth comments, abuse, personal violations, and general abhorrent behavior towards me and the women around me from ignorant DOC employees.

No longer, will I tolerate someone’s ignorance, racism, sexism, prejudice and overall general stupidity. You are a fully grown adult in 2025, UNLEARN THAT SHIT!

If you chose not to, then fuck off. Plain and simple. I am no longer forced to tolerate hateful, abusive, stupid, ignorant people and I won’t. I refuse.

My life is my own now, as are my choices and since the statistics say I should be dead any day now, I am going to live the rest of my life on my own terms. I am going to take the lessons I have learned and apply them to every day going forward. 10 years ago, I was a scared 34 year old woman, trying to figure out how to wash her hands under the automatic faucet at the airport. Now, I am weeks from turning 45, and I am doing better than most adults my age, who aren’t even missing 18 years of their life.

Nothing has been easy and there is a lot of things I wish I could do with my life that I can’t because of my past.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge, that while things have not been easy for me, that means its has been much more difficult for my black and brown friends. Racism in this country runs deep and that ravine of hatred is getting deeper everyday as we go backwards as a country.

Some days, I wish I wasn’t here, some days I don’t want to get out of bed, most days I try to make the most of it. The wounds of incarceration will never heal because at least once a day, something, somewhere tries to remind me that some how I am less than. To that something or someone, I say, “Fuck you.”

I am here now and I am staying, if only to make my purpose in life to annoy you with my smile and success.

CHEERS TO 10 YEARS!