Vincent Jimenez

Opening Doors

When Vincent Jimenez was promoted to the seventh grade, his mother asked the school to hold him back because she didn’t believe he had learned anything and didn’t want him to enter seventh grade feeling inadequate. “I didn’t understand what she was doing,” he said. “The only thing I saw was they passed me, she’s keeping me back.” Rebelling, Vincent dropped out of school. 
    He began using drugs at age six. By the time he entered recovery in Walden House at age 32, he was homeless, pushing shopping carts and eating out of garbage cans. “I really hit bottom.” 
    Through Walden House’s residential program, Vincent learned a lot about what he describes as his negative behaviors. “It was funny because we didn’t talk about drugs. We talked about things that happened in the past that led me to stuff my feelings to use drugs. It’s a behavior modification program.” 
    One weekend, on a pass from Walden House, Vincent saw a poster for Project Read on MUNI. “I looked at it and all my fears came up about telling people that I have this [reading] problem. I procrastinated for about a month and finally got the courage to call.” He was matched with tutor Becky Perrine and things took off from there. 
    Vincent had been working at a number of warehouse jobs. Each time he had the opportunity to move up, if it involved reading and writing, he would refuse the promotion or quit out of fear that people would find out about his reading difficulties. When he was told about a job opening for an outpatient counselor at Walden House, all his fears came up again. But, “I sat in the interview with the man who is my manager and I just told him straight out. And they were willing to work with me…and they hired me.” 
    Vincent said he loves his job at Walden House. “I can get up in the morning and want to go to work!” He’s now attending City College in order to be certified and plans to continue and get his degree. 
    “You can make the step toward the door, but your fear is going to keep you from opening that door. And if you don’t open that door, you’ll never find out what’s on the other side. Today it’s all about opening doors and finding out what’s on the other side.” 
 

Vincent wrote this poem while he was in jail. All my dreams were made of glass Shattered wishes and painful past Secretly I cried tears of sorrow As I shut my eyes and waited for tomorrow There is no sun as the day appears It’s the reddened eyes burned by tears I wander around lost and confused With all the thoughts of the people I’ve used I want to forget but there’s no such thing But hoping for forgiveness is what tomorrow will bring