My name is Peyton Myrick. I am an ex-felon. I will be 31 in 2 days. I spent 3 years in prison for trafficking cocaine. Currently, I am walking the tightrope of probation, which will last for two years altogether. I have been out of prison for four months, and yet it seems much longer than that somehow. The shadow of prison lay behind me now, instead of all about. It is a long shadow indeed, yet not without merit, for I have found myself from within the darkness of that abyss, which is the moral of this tale. So let me tell you what has happened.
The night my world was turned upside down was never supposed to happen. I had finally gotten myself out of the wretched game, or so I had thought, until a fateful phone call from an old friend set the wheels spinning, and I found myself breaking an important promise that I had just made to myself — to stay out of the game for good. "Alright, this one last time," I said. I was all too right. When the world and the lights and my head stopped wheeling, the rug was finally pulled from under my feet, and I battled my long, fierce cocaine addiction during my first 8 days in the Wake County jail, along with a loathsome conscience. After an excruciatingly suspenseful few months out on bail, I was sentenced to 6 years in prison; 3 active, 3 suspended. If I violate my probation, I go back for the other three years. Talk about incentive. And that was that. I was now a part of the machine — the long, winding conveyor of justice that won't stop, no matter how sick it makes you, no matter how hard you wish it would go away. I was a part of the lost sea of souls, strewn together among an endless sea of gravel and concrete. I was desperate: desperate for help, desperate for forgiveness, desperate for friendship, desperate for solace, desperate for hope. But I had friends and family who loved and pitied me, who sent me books that I had asked for, and money to help me get by. The funny thing, however, was that I had begun to change in a most dramatic fashion. Gone was the quasi entrepreneur on a rickety short-cut to hell. In his place, a young man with eyes wide open, whose soul was now mending, was finally taking a long lost stand. I was as thirsty for knowledge and wisdom as I have ever been, and probably ever will be. The only thing that could begin to comfort me was redemption; not socially, but morally. I became an avid reader, which I had never been. I read mostly philosophy, and studied dramatic writing. I was fascinated by correlations between the two, such as the notion that obstacles and complications are the triggers for the drama in our lives, and that it is how we deal with them that determines our character and out-come. More importantly, I was rediscovering who I really am, that fanciful fellow I had abolished and abandoned so frightfully. I was on a mission to make the most of my dreadful lot, and this was what I did.
In time I met a friend and mentor Dennis Gaddy on the inside who stoked the flame of enlightenment I had been tending with an unparalleled enthusiasm and generosity of spirit. He shared his collection of classic personal development material dutifully, and I soaked up the pages as if my very life depended on it. Funny how that works, for I believe that in some ways, it did. I became addicted to the power of positive thought, as this was the one place I could go that could not be controlled by the dullards that lorded their pathetic power over us, the ones who sought to confiscate this material from us, whether we deserved it or not. But they know not what they do. Nevertheless, this was the one way I could feel that this nightmare was not only valuable, but meant to be. And so it was for me. had to go down a long, dark road to find the light, and I am here to tell you that if one is on that path, there is no other way off. Yet it is the path that we all must travel, for all other roads lead to madness or despair. But don't take my word for it. Ask a six time loser and see what he has to say.
Sincerely, Peyton Myrick
