by Harry Goodall Jr., San Quentin State Prison, San Quentin, CA
For me growing up was hard because I felt I knew everything that life had to offer at the age of sixteen. Why would anyone want to stay young?
At the age of sixteen, I obtained a fake ID (identification) saying I was 21 years old. Being an adult was a very hard act, one that was worthy of an academy award. The idea of growing up can be a hard decision for most of us. Struggling with personal ignorance was a hard thing to let go. Some of the issues I had to learn to rid myself of were blame and denial. Things can be most difficult to get rid of when you’re afraid of the consequences. Imagine that your parents asked you if you did something and you said yes and you got your butt whipped as a result.
Which you can imagine I learned to lie in the process. The best lie could be told as everything that went wrong was somebody else’s fault. Don’t laugh, but that was my logic in blame and denial. With this type of mind-set maturing was difficult. So the hardest question that I needed to be asked was when was it time to grow up. The thought of embracing responsibility was hard due to the fact that I gained money by selling drugs. The money came fast and I didn’t respect any of it. I was spending most of it as soon as it came to my hands.
My flawed thought process thought it was more of a situation of what risk verses reward was I willing to take. Sadly, prison wasn’t a scare. This era was before The Three Strikes Law and if the law existed at the time, I had no knowledge of what all I could lose as a result from the law.
This is where with knowledge comes power. I really wish someone had asked me the question of when I felt it was time to grow up. Maybe it was someone I trusted that would literally ask me where I was headed might have made a slight change. But I would have had to value that person close to my opinion.
I would have to have had an open mind also. What would have possibly changed me was being able to have someone to walk with me or possibly sit me down. I guess prison did so, but only when I was ready. It took an OG to lead me into something that was hard to teach me because I was immature mentally.
I fit the description of that sort of person that needed to be in prison to not commit further violence. I imagine my picture would have been in the dictionary next to the word idiot. It was not until I began to struggle with myself that growing up could start.
I am so glad I did. I have kids that need me and the ability to understand what I did wrong in life. It’s hard to admit fault when you haven’t grown up yet. Remember my thought process was that it was someone else’s fault for anything that went wrong in my life. That is not my mind set as I have begun to finally grow up. I am very much human and see many flaws.
These flaws don’t make me less of an adult in the process. It does allow me room to grow by seeing them. I never wanted to grow up, but I’m glad I’m taking steps to do so now.