30 Years In The Making. How This Felon Can Now Fly.

For 30 years I have wanted to travel the world. But thanks to a crippling heroin addiction, felony parole, and probation I just never got around to getting my passport... Much less even allowed to do so.

A while back I started to jump through the hoops needed to travel abroad. I finally got everything in order at the end of February right when Covid-19 and the travel restrictions started really ramping up here in the states. Still I filed all my documents and started the waiting game.

Five months later, for the first time in my life, I held my very own passport in my hands. To most people a passport is just something they got at one point or another that sits in their sock draw next to their birth certificate. They don’t use it or think about it, it's just there.

Not for me.

This is a monumental moment in my life. When I was 18 years old I lost all my rights as an American citizen. You see being convicted of a felony has lifelong consequences. Becoming a convicted felon will have a long lasting impact on a person's life and results in the loss of basic civil rights such as the right to vote, the right to sit on a jury, traveling abroad, the right to bear arms, employment in certain fields, public social benefits, parental benefits, and so much more.

They also make it very difficult to do a whole number of thing. It's next to impossible to join the military or find a house or apartment with a landlord who will rent to you. The list could go on for days, but since this post is about me getting my passport and traveling I should mention I'm not just out of the woods yet. You see the U.S. has issued me a passport, however many countries such as Canada will not let me enter their lands without jumping through hoops.

Thanks to my actions as an 18 year old drug addict who caught a felony I am limited in the things I can do in life. But I don't let that keep me down. I'm grateful for my past because of all the things it taught me. And I'm even more grateful for things that most people overlook- like a passport.