Becoming the Person I Was Meant to Be

by Debra Bailey

Hello, my name is Debra Bailey. As of May 16, 2025, I will proudly graduate with not one, but three associate degrees, a milestone that once felt impossible. This fall, I’ll be continuing my journey at California State Polytechnic Humboldt, where I’ll be finishing my education and stepping fully into the career I’ve chosen. Social work is a career rooted in empathy, understanding, and the power of second chances.

You see, life teaches us to wear masks. We wear so many faces, depending on the day, the situation, or the people around us. Some of those faces are easy to take off, others feel like they’ve been glued to our skin, as if they’ve grown into us. When you finally try to peel one away, especially the ones built from survival, from addiction, from pain, it isn’t just uncomfortable, it’s excruciating. It’s like ripping away a part of yourself, leaving open wounds beneath, scars layered on top of scars that never got the chance to heal.

Maybe this is where you are in your life right now. Standing at the edge of your own wreckage, unsure if you’ve got the strength to pull yourself free. I’ve been there. I’ve stood in that place, broken and tangled in the mess I’d made, convinced I was beyond repair.

It’s not an easy place to climb out of but I promise you, it can be done.

For a long time, I believed I wasn’t worth the effort. I believed that if something came easy, it wasn’t meant for me, and if I had to work for it, I probably wouldn’t be strong enough to keep it anyway. The truth is that the things that don’t come easy, the things you fight and bleed for, are the things that mold you. Even the garbage, the pain, the failures, the addictions shape you into the person you’re meant to become. They teach you. They prepare you.

Not so long ago, my introduction would’ve sounded a lot different. I would’ve told you I was a nobody. A woman with no future, no pride, no story worth telling. I am 50 years old, and for most of those years, I didn’t believe I had accomplished a single thing I could stand tall and be proud of. But now I understand life isn’t about racking up trophies or perfect moments: it’s about how you give back, lead by example, and become the kind of person you needed when you were at your lowest.

The past? It doesn’t get to define me anymore. It was just one chapter, one piece of the journey that brought me here. If I were still trapped there, if I let it control the way I saw myself, this is what I would say:

“Hi, my name is Debbie. I’m 50 years old. I spent 25 years addicted to meth. I’ve been to prison twice. I’ve been in and out of jail more times than I can count. I have four beautiful children, all of whom I lost, handed over to other families who stepped in when I couldn’t. Families who got to love them, raise them, whisper stories about the mother they never really knew.”

That was my reality for a long time. My babies whom I love with my whole heart and soul and who will never really know just how much! It’s a pain I carry every single day, and some days it feels impossible to bear. But I learned the hard way that pain can become your prison, and I refused to be trapped in mine any longer. I spent too many years stuck, chained to a past I couldn’t change.

This story I’m telling you isn’t neat or polished. It doesn’t follow a straight line. It’s about everything and nothing, all at once. I’m telling it because I want you, whoever you are, wherever you are in your life, to see me, or really see me. And to know that I will see you too. Our lives may have started in different places, but the fight is the same. The need to heal is the same. The dream of something better is the same.

My children were, and still are, a huge part of my life. But the way I live for them has changed. I no longer do things for them, because I’ve lost that right at least for now. I do things because of them. I wake up, I show up, I push forward, because one day, when they come looking for me, they won’t find the broken woman I used to be. They won’t find an old lady sitting in the corner with a meth pipe, wasting away.

I am going to make a difference.

I will fight to keep families together, families who deserve to stay whole, not torn apart like mine once was. I know the pain of separation, and I carry it with me as both a wound and a mission.

For the children who can’t go home, I will be the steady presence in their lives, the one who shows up when everything feels scary and uncertain. Just like I pray someone was there for my own children when I couldn’t be.

Everything I do from this point forward is in their memory, with the hope that one day, they’ll come find me. And when they do, I want to be able to say: This is what I’ve been doing. This is what your life inspired.

Will they forgive me?
Will they be proud of me?
Will they love me?

I don’t know the answers yet. But I do know this: I will never stop trying to be someone they can be proud of.

I will never stop striving to be the person I was meant to be.

I see change.
I see people standing up, taking off those masks, and finally letting the world see who they really are, flawed, but still worthy, broken, but still here. And I am one of them.

And if they come back into my life one day, I want them to see not just who I was but who I became, because of them.

Sincerely,

Debra Bailey

Debra Bailey is a formerly incarcerated individual who spent nearly 25 years behind bars. Now a dedicated college student, she is transforming her past into a positive force by pursuing a career in social work. Having lost her children to CPS, Debra is committed to working within the system to help others facing similar struggles and to create opportunities for healing and change.