L a n c e W r i g h t s e l l
L E S S O N S I N L O S S E S
The ConTextos Authors Circle was developed in collaboration with young people at-risk of, victims of, or perpetrators of violence in El Salvador. In 2017 this innovative program expanded into Chicago to create tangible, high quality opportunities that nourish the minds, expand the voices and share the personal truths of individuals who have long been underserved and underestimated. Through the process of drafting, revising and publishing memoirs, participants develop self-reflection, critical thinking, camaraderie and positive self-projection to author new life narratives.
Since January 2017 ConTextos has partnered with Cook County Sheriff's Office to implement Authors Circle in Cook County Department of Corrections as part of a vision for reform that recognizes the value of mental health, rehabilitation and reflection. These powerful memoirs complicate the narratives of violence and peace building, and help author a hopeful future for human beings behind walls, their families and our collective communities.
While each author’s text is solely the work of the Author, the image used to create this book’s illustrations have been sourced by various print publications. Authors curate these images and then, using only their hands, manipulate the images through tearing, folding, layering and careful positioning. By applying these collage techniques, Authors transform their written memoirs into illustrated books.
This project is being supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number ALN 21.027 awarded to Cook County by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Lance
Wrightsell
My losses tell the story of my life. Each one made me a little bit better and a bit worse, if that makes any sense. My losses tell a story of anger and abandonment, of confusion and vengeance. But it also tells a story of triumph and hope of freedom. In some ways my behavior got worse because I didn't know how to work through my issues or convey to others how I felt. Emotional intelligence is something I still lack to this day. In other ways I gained clarity on how valuable time is, what life is, and most of all what pain is.
I am acutely aware of how each situation affected my life. I believe that we all have a path that's predetermined for us. Along the way the obstacles that we encounter present a fork on that road. I often took the wrong route.
I wonder if I ever get back to that same intersection and make the right turn? Maybe. Or am I destined to continually branch off the same wrong path until I'm so far down the road that I lose sight of what's right.
It's almost eerie that most of my losses have occurred during a time when I was incarcerated. It's like a bad omen. As if being locked away isn't bad enough, compounding that trial with the suffering of death every time is almost too much to handle sometimes. Talk about bad luck. My father's side of the family always half-jokingly say to prepare for a funeral when they find out I got arrested.
To this day I have lost a sibling, a parent, every grandparent, a best friend and a girlfriend. Not to forget the countless number of other friends I grew up with. I've lost an aunt this year that I’ve been incarcerated. They all cut so deep, there's no temporary fixes. I could never find a bandage big enough to cover the pain. No act of violence, or woman, or drugs can stop the bleeding. Trust me I tried them all, and somehow the wounds are still leaking to this day. Hopefully the old adage that time heals all is true.
My sister died while I was young, around 11 years old and she was younger than me. At that point in life everything was still fun. Going to local parks, and playing basketball in the middle of the street. Hanging out with friends at school, and going to the skating rink at night. That carefree way of life is solely missed, before the turmoils of life start to harm you.
I didn't really understand the finality of death at that age, but the hurt and misplaced aggression was there all the same. I could not imagine back then, some 20 years ago that I would still be deeply saddened every time I saw my sister's twin by what could have been.
First lesson is sometimes the good die young and there is no such thing as fair in life. There is no balance in between. I have to do what I can to tip the scales in my favor, always searching for an advantage.
Now, if you live in a community or society where everyone is constantly looking for the upper hand or to get over on the next person, how are we to thrive? How can I help somebody up when I'm trying to step over them to selfishly accomplish my own goals.
I lost my dad at the age of 17. He was about 40 or so, still relatively young. If there was ever a party or event he was always the first person to call very funny and relatable. He was this big giant of a man in size, he was 6’4 265 lbs, and in personality.
A real humble person, but an overall tough guy. We had a very tumultuous relationship due to me running around in the streets. I was just rebellious at the time feeling like I knew everything. Still, he was who I turned to for guidance in the streets that I was drowning in at this point in my life. Sort of like a life raft. He died of heart failure.
The way he lived his life and from numerous stories I've heard about him in the streets, I always suspected that if he died, it would be by violence. So it feels as though this tough man that everybody knew died because he was too fragile.
Which brings me to the next lesson, which is that we are all fragile in some shape or form whether we care to admit it or not. And just like when you ship something that's fragile, you have to insulate it well. So we spend our lives insulating our insecurities and fragileness so that we don't break. How do we know who we are truly dealing with at the moment? When you open that box with glass inside, you have to first get through layers of cardboard, styrofoam, and bubble wrap before you reach the item and in this case reach that person. How do we get to a point where we don't have to go through all of that to reach each other, and do we even want to live in a world where everyone is easily broken? Because it's hard to fix broken pieces, while tiptoeing around trying not to hurt ourselves.
A few months later the most kind-hearted and selfless person I've ever known, my grandmother, passed away. She was the one who constantly steered me back on track every time I strayed off course. When she passed I felt like I lost all sense of direction. She had been taking the death of my father, her only son, hard. She had a big soft spot for my dad because he was her only troublemaker. She held our family together, so it was devastating to everyone, but no one more than me.
She has directly impacted my life positively more than anyone or anything. I am who I am because of her, my moral compass was directed by her. The integrity I live my life with, the patience and perseverance I have are things learned from her along the way. Her void in my life left a gaping hole that I filled by reflecting my pain onto others. Trying to make people understand my hurt, I projected it onto the world.
I've now come to realize that no one truly feels as you do. Though you may have lost the same person someone else may be able to move past it, and it may be debilitating to you, and crippling to your well-being. Everyone's pain is unique to them. My grandmother didn't have any underlying medical conditions, she just passed away in her sleep one day. My family believes she was so distraught over my dad's passing that my family thinks she died of a broken heart, and then in turn broke mine, leaving emptiness.
There's a lesson I got from that, and it was to become hollow to try to never let the wide range of emotions ever settle in me, allow it to just pass through, like a nomad. The depth of emotions can be overwhelming if you don't know how to deal with them properly. Imagine looking at a pool at the park filled up, outside of the markings telling the depth it seems relatively even. Then look at the same pool when it's empty and you see it's vast decline. Now you can see the full scope of things and how dangerous it could potentially be jumping into that depth unknowingly, and falling too deep in the pit of emotions can be too much if you don't know how to tread water. Or have someone to rescue you, you might just drown, so I like to view that pool already empty so I'm aware of what I'm getting myself into and stay far away. Become hollow like a tree, now a hollowed out tree dies unable to provide oxygen to survive, too many hollow trees and we become extinct, too many hollow people and well, who knows.
A year and a half later two days before my 19th birthday, my girlfriend Kiarra who was killed in the passenger seat of my car in an act of violence that was aimed at me. I was the only one that survived. This one is so profound to me because though she wasn't the first person I lost to gun violence, she was the only one I felt responsible for. Even before life's tragedies and hardships I was already a person someone would describe as bottled up. I don't trust many people in my life I'm also not openly expressive, and just tough on building meaningful bonds and relationships.
Kiarra was the one who was able to get me to let my guard down and open up more to people. She used to always tell me that I had to let somebody in and allow for the possibility of healing. She's someone I feel was just a genuine soul, someone who never had ulterior motives she always told me she'd be the one to fix me, although I never thought I was broken to begin with. There wasn't anyone I trusted more. Maybe I got too comfortable, maybe I should have followed my first mind and waited until I was done with my business before I picked her up. Maybe I could have done something different that day. I wonder sometimes if I had done just one little thing differently in certain situations would the outcomes have changed.
Too many what if’s, too many hypotheticals, too many questions. My next lesson is to constantly access the situation, always question everything. In a world filled with manipulation and people out for self-perseverance how can you not feel like you should question everything. What happens when just being cautious turns into a lifestyle of paranoia?
Feeling like you can never trust anyone or let someone close because you ' re constantly questioning everybody's intentions, until you reach a point where you ' re always questioning yourself. When I get to the conclusion that not all these questions have answers and sometimes I just need to have faith, I think I'll be all right. Except sometimes those same questions have me questioning my faith too.
Speaking of faith, my best friend Tone died on the steps of a church on the street we hung out on our whole lives. You don't get many people in life who are just true friends, someone who has stuck around during the low points in our lives and was able to help build me back up. Likewise, someone who has been around for the good I've done also and can see past the hurt and disappointment I've caused. He was a man who was determined to rise above his poverty stricken community and not become another name that fell to the wayside. He was all about accountability not only for himself, but he held us all accountable for our actions. Having grown up around the same set of circumstances as most of his friends his word has a certain cache that would resonate with us all because we knew it was coming from experience it was coming from his heart. He was back in the city on vacation between semesters and lost his life. That loss was a hard pill to swallow, I wanted retaliation and my malice filled my heart.
When you have so much built up rage, and revenge that you want for an injustice you endured, it feels all consuming. It burns deep and it burns long until it's spiraling out of control like a wildfire. You need something to help you douse that flame, something to promote healing, something to motivate change. The last lesson is pain can motivate you to impact your neighborhood and the lives of others for the better or it can motivate you to destroy it, it can make everything you do worthwhile and purposeful, but you have to learn to harness that emotion to fuel change.
What causes a person to view life through a certain lens? Some people are prone to always see the downside of things, whereas someone else may feel fortunate in the same situation. Imagine the head on collision where one person can only dwell on their car being totaled, and the other person just feels blessed to be alive. Life's lessons changes your perception on everything. I don't feel like I'm a pessimist, but I do analyze most situations to see what could go wrong or where I can be taken advantage of.
The naivete of my childhood was lost to the harsh realities of life. These lessons are like my protections, like a shield to prevent hurt and harm. They're meant to obscure any perceived vulnerabilities that could be exploited. Used as defense mechanisms put in place from years of perpetual losses that have shaped my life and my personality, and my willingness to open up to people. In some ways I've been enslaved to them because I really don't know any other way to live without so many walls built up.
I'm not sure who I would be if they all came crashing down.
Although most of these lessons are meant to keep people away I have learned that everybody needs somebody. I have to be more receptive to allowing people to help me. In doing so I open up to the possibilities of meaningful living without discard. With all these losses I'm due for a win. When you always win it’s hard to handle losses, but when you always lose and then finally win…
I'm supposed to win eventually…
Lance Wrightsell
I Am From
I am from the K blocks, off Pulaski road
From early deaths, stories left untold
I’m from Lance and Juanita, my parents who made me
I am from Cheman tov, but im grandmas baby
I’m from fashion capital
From where they sell drugs for capital
I am from Pelles and Wheat timbs
From where they shoot at people before they shoot in gyms
I am from the te-te on the block, those the old days
I’m from serving te-te on the spot, those my old dawgs
I am from old schools and 8 door vans
I am from same morals never betray your friends
I am from McArthur's and Uncle Remus
From if you said it you better mean it
I’m from 290, but I switched lanes
Cause where I’m from, man it been changed
Until the lion learns to write their own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter - African Proverb
