Meet Bill, Team VOA Southside Member

“Why are you smiling?” 

On a recent Tuesday morning run at Team Southside, this was Resident Member Bill’s response to the Question of the Day: “What question do people always ask you?”

“I tell them I am smiling because I am so happy to be here. To be alive, to be free, to be with all of you. I have my whole life ahead of me.” 

At age 56, it could be considered unusual to feel as though your whole life is ahead of you. But for Bill, who spent the past 16 years in prison, these past few weeks in the halfway house have been the start of a whole new life. He is, he believes, a completely different person than the man who went in nearly two decades ago. The person he is today has never been alive in this world, a whole new world to him. And that concept has him at one excited, grateful, and filled with anxiety.

“I was not a good person. In fact I was a horrible human being. I walked all over people. But I also lost everyone.  My parents were great, but I was adopted, and to be honest that really messed with me. I always felt … off, different. When I was a young man, just turned 18, I met my birth mother - and I also met two half-siblings, children that she kept. I knew one of them! This was extremely hard for me - yes, she told me she couldn’t afford to keep me, and it’s true they grew up much poorer than I had. But I would’ve rather had that than to be the one pushed aside, given away. I had a lot of anger about that, anger I didn’t deal with in a healthy way. 

I was a high school dropout, but I worked my way up to becoming a very successful businessman. I started out racing cars in my youth, and that lead to being a car salesman, and then I kept rising up. By age 32 I had started my own company. I let my ego drive me, and I made a lot of enemies. I was a jerk, and I walked all over people, and I lost my business contacts and my friends. The breaking point was when I was asked to speak at a conference, and when I got up to speak people walked out. Everyone hated me.

I hesitate to share this, because I still struggle with people’s opinion of me. But I think it’s important to share, especially when it comes to mental health. I hit a low point, and I tried to commit suicide. Unfortunately, my attempt didn’t hurt just me, it hurt other people, and I can’t ever take that back. And as a result, I received a twenty year prison sentence. 

My sentence began in 2007. I decided on day one to improve myself - working out, learning a trade - but the truth is I was still an asshole. I was playing tough guy. It wasn’t until 2016 that I really changed. I had a friend who was going to be singing at Christmas mass, so I decided to go - to heckle him, really. But that night at chapel something just changed inside me. I was always the guy who said “I didn’t come to prison to find God,” but that night he found me. That is when things really changed for me. 

A few years later, we had a chance to hear a victim’s family talk about the impact the crime had had on their lives, and when they were done speaking I asked them if there was anything someone like me could do to make things better. One of the family members told me that I could share my own story with others in hopes that it would make a difference, and at that point I decided I would do what I could to talk to as many people I could. 

When I was preparing to be released from prison I was armed with a lot of misinformation and I was prepared for the worst. The only thing you know about the outside when you are in comes from people who have left prison, and then returned. So many guys return, and their experience in the outside world wasn’t good - so they spread a lot of negativity and fear. “No one will help you out there.” You don’t hear from the guys who made it. 

My experience of reentry, so far, has had its ups and downs - there are certainly challenges - but I have found that the world is less scary, and that people are more willing to help me and accept me than I anticipated. So I started a blog about my experience mainly for all the guys still inside who think the world out here will be awful to them. I want to give them hope where I didn’t have much. I will keep it real, share my struggles but also the so many wonderful, positive things I have found. I hope this blog not only gives hope to the men still in prison, but also helps people who have never been to prison better understand what reentry is like. 

What has helped my reentry the most? Faith, my mentor, Mile in My Shoes. I have embraced MiMS as my family. I couldn’t imagine doing this without you all.”

Please check out Bill’s blog on his reentry experience here and share with others - inside and out!