Another Introduction to American Citizen

Hello Steemians, My name is Terry Rucker and I haven't been on here very long. I do feel as though another introduction to myself is in order as my life is constantly changing and I'm growing like a rose from concrete. I'm in my early thirties, I think, 33, is that early thirties still? I don't know, but that's how old I am. Having grown up poor almost my entire life I feel as though I'm doing this adulting thing pretty well, at least now any ways.

When I was 18 years and 31 days old I had made a monumental miscalculation coupled with a bad judgement call which lead to an insurmountable mistake that landed me in prison doing seven years of a ten year sentence in the Missouri Department of Corrections. Depending on how one would want to frame such an experience "it was," as Charles Dickens would say, "the best of times, it was the worst of times". I had made the choice to take the time to learn as much as I could while i was in there. I had a time on my hands and didn't want to waste it, too much. I spent countless nights in my cell with books from the library that were hardly ever checked out, generally textbooks, in subjects ranging from Math to Psychology. Religion and History and Politics. Hours and hours would pass by with me studying as though I had a dissertation due the next day. This helped me cope with the years that I had nobody to write me, no visits, nothing. I filled my mind with knowledge to keep me from assimilating into my environment. Every calendar that I threw away filled me with more knowledge, less hope, and more existentialism. It was through those years that I solidified other's faith in god and discovered his non-existence. That I learned that all the doubt and questions I had in regards to the conditioning humans go through, was not only logical, but the very act of seeking those answers was enlightening. Don't get it twisted though, I was still very much in prison, I did the things prisoners do. I gambled, poker mainly and the occasional football ticket, I made "hooch" or "Pruno" or "Prison Wine", almost caught more time for that one. I smoked weed, played Dungeons and Dragons, and had taken a few Vo-Tech classes as well. I got into fights, I was jumped, and I jumped people. The activity I participated ranged from spiritual to down right shameful. No, maybe not shameful. That would be to say that the actions filled me with shame, I don't think any of them did, and that would be because I stuck to my principles and maintained a certain level of integrity. After almost seven years, from April 2004 to November 18th 2010, I was released into the open arms of a vicious society that has already predetermined the rest of my life in this world. As a felon, people tend to forget that felons are humans too, and in America, we are American Citizens.

Shortly after release, I quickly gained employment for a firm called Protel Systems, where I conducted business to business sales calls. I was damn telemarketer. It wasn't that bad, the company was decent, and there were a lot of women around. After all those years when it mostly just me, Rosie Palmer and her five sisters, I had a grand ole time around all those young, pretty girls. I felt like Templeton from Charlotte's Web when he was headed to the fair. But I was a single 20 something male with a job and no real responsibilities, except parole of course. Which only added to my appeal, because after-all, ladies love a bad boy, right. Right? Again, I don't really know, but I do know, I was having a lot of sex. That did end up causing me to lose my job though. I mean, my reputation one of a playboy. I literally couldn't take a girl to lunch on our lunch break without everyone assuming we just had sex. I mean we usually did just have sex, but that's not the point. Anyways, I was seem having conversations with one of the manager's wife and he got mad and accused me of having sex with her. As possible and probable as the accusation was, I can honestly say that I didn't, hadn't, well...not at that point. Shortly after losing my job from the false accusation I went ahead and turned the lie into the truth. #IdidITanyways

Life continued to move forward at the rate that time chooses to move. I went through a lot of shit since then. I had several other jobs, minimum wage, general labor, temp service type jobs, and nothing fit. My life remained what seemed to be a little unstable. Of course I took sex out of the work place and it didn't really help. I started drinking, smoking K2, weed, and that rabbit hole went pretty deep, started climbing out through the rooms and fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous. I made some great friends there, watched people go in and out of the rooms only to be lost or found later in the years. I fell back into the world, was doing well, had a baby boy, Christopher Darren, but through a series of unfortunate events, poor judgement, and a decent career as a drug dealer I lost all I had gained. Including my son. I lost my mind at that time.

In the span of a couple years I lost everything, down to the respect of my mother, because of drugs. More specifically, Meth. Yeah, it was bad. I lost a couple of emails a few years ago when I was in jail. Those email were connected to a couple Facebook pages, I no longer have access to those Facebook pages and so it seems as though they will be frozen in time on the servers of Facebook waiting to one day come back haunt me because they are frozen in the time that I was at my absolute worst. It's something I do worry about sometimes. I visit the old pages now and contemplate how far I've come.

I have a daughter now, Isabella Destiny, her brother Christopher lives in Louisiana with their great Aunt Stella. I'm not allowed to see or talk to him. He's about to be 6. I try to take my hatred for Stella, and filter it into more love for my daughter. I'm now doing quite well, I don't drink, smoke weed, or do drugs. I no longer work for anyone and thus I have taken my life into my hands, and no longer rely upon another person to make sure i have work. I run my own landscaping company called The Lawn Service LLC (TheLawnService.Biz). I invest in stocks, gold, silver and cryptocurrencies. I'm going back to school and have a semester out the way already. I'm looking forward to what the future has, or rather...what I will bring into the future.

With the end of this Introduction I want to say go ahead and follow me, upvote and resteem this. I'm not sure what all will come from this account. My interest vary so widely that when I learn something new, or question the news I'm sure I'll get a hair up my ass and write about it. If not something like this, then perhaps a short fictional story, or a real story with fictional characters, or poems or some random ass shit. I could probably plug my book here, It's called American Criminal, The Poetry of a Man In and Out or Prison. You can get it on Amazon.

That's it folks, let me know what you think, what you want to know, and whether I'm going to be accepted in this community.