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40-Year-Old Mother of 3 Goes From Inmate to Princeton Intern
A Former Inmate
Woman goes from inmate to Princeton intern.
Photo by Nick Fewings on UnsplashMary McCrary is a 40-year-old mother of three who spent three years in prison. According to Good Morning America, she served time at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville for a parole violation following a conviction for aggravated burglary.
McCrary dropped out of high school in Grade 10 and has since successfully pursued her GED, but it wasn’t until prison that she began thinking about further education. She hit a breaking point behind bars and decided it was time to turn her life around.
“When you get to a point where you're tired and don’t even want to live and you're hopeless and you feel useless and worthless, you have a decision to make,” she told the publication.
“I made the decision to use this time to do something different, to change my life, because I didn’t want to keep doing the same things and getting in trouble and ... doing whatever I had to to survive because it gets you in the exact same place.”
So, McCrary enrolled in a coding class as part of the center’s Persevere program, an initiative aimed at helping inmates earn certifications as front-end or full-stack web developers.
“The class alone made you feel like you’re a human being, that I was working towards something, that there is a goal in sight, I am going to accomplish something, and I did,” she added. “That does give you confidence and hope.”
A Life-Changing Opportunity
For the next six months, McCrary earned her certificate in front-end coding. She decided to develop her skills even more by enrolling at Nashville State Community College, which offers a program for inmates.
This past May, McCrary was granted parole, completed her supervision, and earned extra credits toward an associate’s degree. But not even she could anticipate what would happen next: an internship at Princeton.
The nine-week program is meant for formerly incarcerated undergrad students to gain experience and new opportunities, and so far, McCrary is excelling.
“Her dedication to building her future is evident in how she does not shy away from challenges and the unknown,” Bridgett vonHoldt, an associate professor at Princeton and the head of the internship program said. “She is a role model, demonstrating for anyone who thinks such change is impossible that nothing is impossible.”
As for McCrary, she knows this is an incredible opportunity and hopes the internship is the next step toward earning her AA degree back in Nashville.
“This has been life-changing in more ways than one. This is an unbelievable, sometimes overwhelming experience,” she said. “If you look at my past, it's a crazy shamble mess, but look now, look what can happen. Nothing is ever impossible.”
Second Chances
McCrary hopes to be a role model for those who are having a hard time accepting the idea of a brighter future and so far, she certainly is. She’s a great example of how things can get better and you can change your future when you’re willing to take advantage of the opportunities you have — even if they don’t seem like opportunities at the time.
This story is also a needed reminder that everyone deserves a second chance in life and that sometimes, by allowing someone who has messed up the chance to try again, they may surprise you.
No one is perfect, and everyone stumbles. It’s not how hard we fall that truly matters in life; it's how we pick ourselves back up. But it’s also up to us whether we want to be the person who lends someone on the ground a helping hand or if we want to be the guy who just keeps on walking.
Birth of the Butterfly: Our Inner Fuels for Change and Transformation
The power to change and transform is embedded within us all. We live as creatures of habit, yet change is the constancy that we all share. The energy of our universe vibrates with continuity, connection, and creation. A small change within one of us inevitably sends its ripples to another heart. When we fight against this cosmic flow, we step out of our dance with life, and are left bruised by the inner conflict and gasping for air in a breathless stagnation.
Our nature is to seek comfort on our journey. So when we find it, we stay in our comfort zone -- until we are pushed out, and forced back onto the path of our own evolution. Our continuous growth is an existential essential, and the only thing that propels us forward.
Birth of the Butterfly: Our Inner Fuels for Change and Transformation
We fear change after the warm glow of the well-known because it is intangible, something we cannot grip or physically touch. How can we trust something that is unapparent and ambiguous? When we lack trust from within, it naturally filters through, leaving us suspicious, afraid and uncomfortable. And yet, the beauty of life is the very mystery and wonder it keeps.
We have programmed ourselves to sit cocooned in the closet of comfort, preferring to cling to the falsity of the familiar rather than brave the power of possibility. For progress and growth, a deep awakening must often be forced upon us, through a painful occurrence or an inner upheaval and despair. Or an inner desire pushes us to finally emerge into the new, because the fear of staying rooted to the habitual overtakes the one for change -- inspiring us to finally and graciously break free of our cocoons.
Our catalysts and agents for change
We need to be moved quite harshly to be liberated from old habits and behaviors; inner turmoil and despondency prompt us to retreat and rediscover our innate power for reinvention. Our seeds of potential are not sewn in tight spaces; they are frequently found in shadowy open lands, hidden from light and elusively awaiting discovery. Transformation creates confusion and upset, distress and agitation, because a re-birth requires a great unsettling and an exit from what once was.
Life’s change agents act as catalysts for the shifts that are often much needed in our lives. Pain, loss, deep-seated fears, heartbreak, tough times and challenges serve to destabilize our foundations, ripping the comfort from our bones and sparking the light of transformation from deep within. It is only through an inner death, a finality to a certain way of being, that we are pushed toward a new way forward.
When we dull the echo of the inner voice that calls us to evolve and reach for new ground, we only encourage a more forceful push from the universe in some way. Catalysts are exertions and inner magnifications of desperation that knock us down, so we can better learn to fly.
Embracing our dance with life
When we anchor our thoughts, keeping them fixed and immutable, it whittles away our sense of openness, both in mind and heart. Our fear of change disrupts our need for movement and enrichment from new experiences. We move out of life’s dance when we remain rutted in thoughts and behaviors that are neither enlightening nor progressive. It is an inner struggle we all face, yet one that we can adapt to and flow with rather than battle against.
When we observe and liberate our thoughts we can adjust and amplify our mindset to one that does not lock us out of the fresh and unknown, but instead allows us to embrace it. Rather than fight against our challenges we can patiently and fervently guide ourselves through them. When we trust in ourselves we engage with the strength we have within; it becomes our backbone for fortifying our intuitive processes in alignment with a heightened sense of our inner being. Through an enhanced awareness of our transient nature we immerse ourselves into life’s beauty of continuity and rhythm.
The butterfly: a symbol of transformation
Butterflies are a symbol of transformation, joy and originality -- no two sets of butterfly wings are ever the same. They sweep into sun-soaked skies and swirl around petals of vibrant colors, moving swiftly from one to the next as they trust in their dance with beauty. Butterflies are the masters of metamorphosis and adaptability, facilitating change so that life continues. The caterpillar cocooned into her chrysalis does not fight to break the shell or resist her growth. She implicitly trusts in her own inherent timing and continuity of being. Only emerging free when her wings are strong enough to fly; out of the shell breaks the beautiful butterfly.
Butterflies teach us to seek our own flexibility and flow with life. To paint new pictures, brush stroke by brush stroke. We can understand that true beauty lies in our own unique reflection, and that through wakefulness emanates our natural pattern of existence. Just as the butterfly, we can gracefully acknowledge that change is necessary for unravelling our blossom of riches.
Birth of the butterfly
Chaos and conflict create the chemistry for transformation and propel an exodus of the inessential from our lives. We can choose to lace ourselves with a patient and unswerving trust that the new will bring growth and value to our journey. We learn and understand that the time of the faithful caterpillar expires only for the elegance and wonder of a butterfly’s wings to unfold -- transparent and assertive in its individuality, and dynamic in its new-found freedom.