Today reminded me of something I already knew but keep having to relearn: doing the work doesn’t guarantee people will look past where you started.

I reached out to someone I consider a friend about maybe sharing an update — how far I’ve come since a program tied to my education while incarcerated. It felt like the natural next step. I’d been featured before, and I thought a follow-up could show what happened after: the reading, the teaching, the planning, the relationships, all the quiet preparation for life after prison.

The answer was no.

After some discussion, they told me, it just felt too risky — the nature of my conviction, the sensitivity around it.

I respected the honesty. I still do.

But it stung.

What made it harder was the contradiction underneath it. The same spaces that preach second chances, rehabilitation, the humanity of incarcerated people — those same spaces can get nervous when that belief has to hold up against one specific, complicated person.

I get it. Organizations have reputations to protect. Not every conviction reads the same to the public. Believing in criminal justice reform as an idea is one thing; putting your name next to one real person is another.

Understanding that doesn’t make it hurt less.

Maybe that’s the actual lesson.

I’ve spent so much time getting ready for the day I come home — employment, housing, relationships, business, probation, money, rebuilding a reputation. But there’s a piece of reentry you can’t really rehearse on paper: watching people decide your past still outweighs who you’re becoming now.

This was a small taste of that.

It reminded me that finishing my sentence doesn’t mean everyone considers the debt settled. The law may put an end date on it. People don’t always do the same.

That’s a hard thing to sit with.

But I’m not letting it stop me.

The rejection didn’t erase anything I’ve built. Not the classes I’ve taught, not the books I’ve read, not the relationships or the plans. And it hasn’t changed how I feel about him. I still call him a friend — and honestly, I respect that he told me straight instead of dodging me or feeding me some excuse.

What it did change was how I see the road ahead.

I’m going to have to work harder. Maybe a lot harder.

There will be people who won’t take the chance. Rooms where my conviction walks in before I do. People who see exactly what I’m doing now and still weigh it against what I did before.

I can’t control that.

I can control what I do next.

So I’ll keep building. Keep learning. Keep teaching. Keep reaching out. Keep documenting the process, one day at a time.

This was disappointing, but it wasn’t defeat.

Xavier Lee of Elkton, MD

“Mizz Debbie’s Boy”