"Shock," Jeff (Jeffrey A. Shockley)
Transcript
From The Desk of JEFFERY A. SHOCKLEY-[ID]
SMART COMMUNICATIONS /PADOC - SCI-MERCER
P.O. BOX 33028, ST. PETERSBURG, FL 33733
If I Knew Then...
How many of us have heard the statement... "If I knew then what I know now"?
However, I often failed to see such things; the simplicity of my life back then, when repeating the same acts desiring different results.
Each time caught in the web of lies I've often told to myself, as well as to others who've said they loved me unconditionally while I repeatedly defied their trust and my responsibility to be the best that I could beyond selfishly ignoring what I knew then.
Now I think about behind chain link razor wire topped fences and cold closed steel prison doors.
How about, "What I know now I knew then" which makes it possible to see beyond yesterday. Molding a unique path forward.
Holding onto the things learned along the way that gives the ability to better recognize the twists and turns, hoops and hurdles of an outraged life I tried to hide behind from fear. Masking over those inner pains suffered through my own unique and real traumas unfortunately unaddressed. because I didn't know then what I know now about self and the ability to rise above the past that existed.
In My Today...
Can I see now how I have grown to know what I know no matter the time of then or now?
Rather, how adjusting heart and mind to make it through the drudgery of holding onto inflicted pains that remain a little less intense...
By understanding that past mistakes nor the opinions of others does not define who I am.
In this I am free to be the best one can be by simply accepting who I am to myself.
Coming to terms as best I can for all that has been done within my control of what has been known.
Here's the thing about the time I have in trying to grab a piece of yesterday applying it today. "If I knew then what I know now"; circumstances change in time and may not fully apply to who, what, when, where, or why I am now. For I'm being better than yesterdays history inflicted with hurtful memories that no longer keep me bound down by prison chains and shackles of time.
