UNPRETTY

Ahh a new year. A new opportunity for growth… to turn the page and start a fresh chapter and personally… another calendar year closer to breathing the free air outside these gates with my boys and my ‘tribe’. The new year is a time to reflect… to take a look at the 365 behind us and carry along the aspects of our journey that served us well and maybe leave behind some of the pieces that did not. I have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks thinking… reflecting… planning but no matter where I seem to focus my attention… my past actions have found their way to the forefront.

There is always a perpetual dread associated with the internal war I wage with myself when I think about my decisions and actions in the past. Basically a continual loop of ‘Why’s’ and ‘How’s’ and ‘Should have’s’ and ‘Shouldn’t Have’s… but the most recent “deep dive” has been an evolved emotional journey. As I processed it all a bit deeper… I kept trying to pin point exactly what it is that causes me such distress. Now… on the nose… it is obviously the decisions that I made in basically all facets of life prior to arriving here at T.I…. but I know that I cannot change those decisions so what is it that I am so fiercely grappling with? I keep finding my way back to this question because without figuring it out… there is no way to begin to work on embracing whatever light I can find within the darkness of it all.

As I walked the track…night after night… listening to music… I came to a realization. I believe that I have been struggling with my own “trauma” of being the person… being the catalyst… that caused such immense trauma for others. I sat with that notion for a bit… “How do I deal with my own trauma of being the one who caused the trauma?” There is a never ending hum of discussion behind these walls about trauma in general. Childhood trauma… family issues… relationship struggles… drug and alcohol addiction and a plethora of other traumatic events that guys express (and believe) led them to make the decisions that they made which landed them here. But I have never heard anyone discuss the trauma associated with being the perpetrator of trauma to others. How do you work through the personal pain of being the sole reason for others’ pain and anguish… for others hardships and heartaches… for their trauma?

I have had a difficult time finding an answer to this question mainly because I felt (and to an extent still feel)… that I don’t deserve to extinguish the flame of the pain that burns within me. I was the one who made those decisions that led to those actions that hurt others… and I am going to sit here and try to figure out a way to alleviate my own pain for doing these things? “F*ck you”… I think to myself. “Sit in it and enjoy the burn because you deserve it” says that voice in my head. But the reality is… that doesn’t help anyone. That doesn’t help me… it doesn’t help the people that I hurt… it doesn’t help my boys that I am physically away from… it doesn’t help my family or my friends… it doesn’t make the lies true… it doesn’t make the losses whole… it helps no one. And it doesn’t change the reality of my past. So… what is the answer?

On Wednesday night… New Years Day… as I walked the track… I believe I found the beginning of an answer in the thing that has provided so much guidance since I have lived behind these walls… music. I had been waiting for Jelly Roll’s new album to become available in here and I happen to check early last week and as I typed in his name… “Beautifully Broken” popped up… I mean the title alone.

I began listening to every single song… start to finish… when I came across the one… I heard the lyrics and tears immediately started to form in my eyes. I felt every single word… deeply… almost on a spiritual level as though I lived his words. And in some way… I believe that I did. I believe that we all have in some capacity because that is the magic of music. It allows us to place ourselves within the story of a song… and lay significance where ever it may fit for our individual journey at the time that we are listening to the melodies. And for me… “Unpretty”… just hit different and it opened my mind in a way that allowed me to see a door to walk through and begin to work through this trauma…

It went…

So many lies I stopped countin’
Tryin to walk a straight line felt like tryin to move a mountain
And I was praying for change… would have died if I’d of stayed the same
I hate the man I used to be but he’ll always be a part of me
Right now lookin’ at my past
I know it’s Unpretty
Can’t hide the pain that I’ve been through
I wear my scars like my tattoos
The man that I was was wrong but he’s the one that built me
I am – Nothing – Without – My Sins
I can’t pretend
They’re not Unpretty.

My past is a part of me. It is forever a piece of the puzzle of my life and no matter how much I hate that person who made those decisions… he had a hand in building the person that I am learning to love a bit more each day today. I think that in order to begin to work through my own trauma and in turn hopefully be able to help the one’s that I hurt work through their’s… I need to accept that “man that I used to be”… flaws and all… and understand that although I hate him because I hate what he did… I can also learn from him. By living through hell… I can now begin to identify what it feels like to survive. While never forgetting the heat of the flames and if I ever start to feel that heat again… that “man I used to be” taught me to run the other direction.

I hope none of you ever make the type of decisions that I made but I also hope you know that no matter what you may be working through emotionally at the moment… as long as you are willing to fight like hell through hell to learn from those decisions and actions that brought you to where you stand today… you deserve grace. You deserve peace. You deserve healing. You deserve a beautiful future… even if you have an ‘Unpretty’ past.

Stay Healthy. Stay Active.

Thank You Musical Geniuses out there… for giving us such gifts.