Sometimes It’s Good We Don’t Get What We Think We Want

An excerpt from my memoir, “Blank Canvas, How I Reinvented My Life After Prison.”

“To keep the body in good health is a duty…otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.”
— BUDDHA

It’s been a month since my release from the halfway house and my newfound freedom is settling in. I still question whether or not I can leave my home. Will someone be looking for me? Am I breaking the law?

In an instant, fear rushes in. It’s the fear of going back, fear of not wanting to make a mistake. Fear of walking out my apartment door. It’s an awful feeling. I come back to reality. I remember I am free. I remember I can walk out of my apartment without permission.

I leave my apartment building and look around. Running shoes tied tight — one foot in front of the other. My pace is slow, my muscles tense. My Achilles heel throbs, a prison injury, making itself known with every step. I foolishly attempted to touch the bottom of the basketball net and it had left with a physical manifestation of a past I’d like to leave behind.

I start down 7th Avenue and take a right up the hill toward 8th. I cross over 8th and decide to head toward 9th — a spur-of-the- moment decision. Arriving at what I expected to be 9th Avenue, I realized there is no 9th. It’s…