The New York Times' latest guest essayist isn't a high-powered politician or CEO—Christopher Blackwell is an inmate serving a 45-year sentence for robbery and murder, a consequence for a life of crime and violence that he now traces back to the first time he picked up a pistol as a tween. "In my early years my home was an abusive one, and by the age of 11, I had been mugged, sexually assaulted, and jumped by other kids while walking home from school," he writes in his opinion piece. "I was tired of feeling weak and unsafe. I was tired of being a kid. And looking at my reflection holding the gun, I finally saw myself as a man." It's a decision he now rues as "the single biggest regret of my life," though he says it took years "before I was able to truly understand the gravity of my actions."
Blackwell says that for a long time, the trauma he'd suffered in his childhood didn't allow him to fully process that regret, as he was stuck in "survival mode." It was only when he hooked up with volunteer group Collective Justice in prison that he allowed himself to start talking with others in similar situations, dealt with his feelings, and started to move away from violence. "It was at this time that the regret I had suppressed began to surface," he writes. "It had always been there—I'd just cordoned it off and built walls around it. But I took a human life. He didn't deserve to die." Now, he says, "the regret I feel will never subside; it is a part of me. ... But what I choose to make of it is up to me." He adds, "It may seem odd to say that I'm grateful for regret, but I am. I owe my growth wholly to my ability to feel regret for the things I've done." More from Blackwell here. (More regrets stories.)
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