PART 9: CHOICES Vol. 2, The Begging of the End
It was a cold dark winter in 1993, actually, I really don't remember it much.... Living in the Haze of intoxication that had somewhat worn off over the winter months through activity and sports. I spent a big chunk of winter months indoors, or in arenas. As the New Year rolled around, brought on new challenges, my first exams and not knowing what to expect. A new year with new challenges and new choices to make, the choices I was faced with in my life at the time.... were choices regarding continuity of a lifestyle that I had been living already, as apposed to making a choice for change... I was torn in different directions within my reality, I was torn within my Life of Dreams.... It felt as if though I was actually living more than one life...
There was light at the end of the tunnel known as winter, Spring was on the horizon, but the winter weather was still present... It was March 1994, and a fresh heavy snow hand hit and continued for a couple days... There was a group of us walking to school one morning, I fell behind for some reason by a couple blocks.... I was trying to catch up but the snow was making it hard to keep a steady pace. My group of friends came across another group, all of us knew each other from house league Football. To say the least, A snowball fight ensued and one of their guys ended up under a pile of snow and had mild frost bite by the time he got to school...
This incident, was the beginning of the end for me, I was in my second period Science class when the police walked in and escorted me out the door... I spent the rest of the day in the office being questioned by the police as well as office staff and principals. I was later suspended from school, the second last day before spring break... so I got 2 weeks off instead of just one, but I was also charged by the police for Assault. This was my first offense, well.... sort of anyway...
This was my first trip to the courthouse, and I learned a lot about the process. Only myself and one of the other guys were charged, so I had a co-accused... Not sure exactly why they only charged us, but it really didn't matter. I was stuck to deal with it on my own anyway. My mother worked for a lawyer, and was able to get him to help out. At that time we didn't know about legal aid.
This was the beginning of the end, in more than one way... I chose then, that I knew from what I learned in the courthouse and court room, that I really couldn't trust too many people in life, and just how shady the justice system can be as well. It didn't give me a lot of hope. It wasn't where I wanted to be and I knew that it wasn't going to do me any good having a record either.... Little did I know, that once your name is in the system, the lengths that cops will go to to keep you in the system...
Although, I made the choice to cut down and eventually stop the criminal activity that I was involved in.... it proved much more difficult than perceived. It was the beginning of police contact on a daily basis, subject to searches in the streets and constant harassment... I think the police wanted to catch us in the act of a crime, but I believe that they more so wanted to stir a reaction, so they could take any of us in on charges of their own making....
The court process was a long one, it took most of the year after all the delays and setting dates for trials, etc... The Crown attorney(Prosecutor), eventually offered a deal to us both to which we had to agrees to plead guilty and were given a complete discharge. I really didn't understand what that meant at the time, I just knew I didn't have to go to jail... what it meant for me was that the police were in my face, each and every day. But I did my best to not give them any reason to charge me again, I had made my decision and had gradually been making progress on my choices.
However, my choice to curb my criminal activity did not seem to curb anything else... My drug and alcohol use escalated, and my reality stayed in a constant haze... Instead of committing the crimes, I began recruiting people to do them... not the best choice I ever made, but the petty crime stopped and changed into ways of making money. Not much money, but I was making money that was helpful to me, it fed me and bought me clothes.. I basically still had a ways to go to achieve my true potential.
Karma wasn't something I really ever thought about back then, I thought by not getting caught, I was keeping myself out of trouble. I was still brought home by the police many times, mainly for being out late at night in places where I shouldn't have been. I was constantly in their sites and there was really no way out, except to stop. I turned my focuses to my interest in music in any way I could... at the time that wasn't much, but it helped me make some better choices. It convinced me that staying out of trouble meant much more than just not getting caught.
I ended up spending my full two weeks off, working in a shop. A former employee of my dad's and a old family friend. I was pretty much washing windows and doing odd jobs around the shop, they couldn't really give me any real work to do, and didn't have enough time to teach me. They did a lot of work with Mississauga transit, so I got to visit their garages got my hands on a book of transfers.... I made use of them that night, I think I rode every route in the city, end to end... It was also the first time I did acid by myself, so I had to stay occupied without getting into a lot of trouble.... So I took the bus... all of them, as far as I could tell.
At this time in my life, it seemed the more I tried to change my ways, the more my environment kept trying to prevent that from happening...Karma was definitely a bitch, in terms of facing my reality and making changes... when I look back at my life nowadays, I believe that the karmic consequences were playing their hand early on....
It was a cold dark winter in 1993, actually, I really don't remember it much.... Living in the Haze of intoxication that had somewhat worn off over the winter months through activity and sports. I spent a big chunk of winter months indoors, or in arenas. As the New Year rolled around, brought on new challenges, my first exams and not knowing what to expect. A new year with new challenges and new choices to make, the choices I was faced with in my life at the time.... were choices regarding continuity of a lifestyle that I had been living already, as apposed to making a choice for change... I was torn in different directions within my reality, I was torn within my Life of Dreams.... It felt as if though I was actually living more than one life...
There was light at the end of the tunnel known as winter, Spring was on the horizon, but the winter weather was still present... It was March 1994, and a fresh heavy snow hand hit and continued for a couple days... There was a group of us walking to school one morning, I fell behind for some reason by a couple blocks.... I was trying to catch up but the snow was making it hard to keep a steady pace. My group of friends came across another group, all of us knew each other from house league Football. To say the least, A snowball fight ensued and one of their guys ended up under a pile of snow and had mild frost bite by the time he got to school...
This incident, was the beginning of the end for me, I was in my second period Science class when the police walked in and escorted me out the door... I spent the rest of the day in the office being questioned by the police as well as office staff and principals. I was later suspended from school, the second last day before spring break... so I got 2 weeks off instead of just one, but I was also charged by the police for Assault. This was my first offense, well.... sort of anyway...
This was my first trip to the courthouse, and I learned a lot about the process. Only myself and one of the other guys were charged, so I had a co-accused... Not sure exactly why they only charged us, but it really didn't matter. I was stuck to deal with it on my own anyway. My mother worked for a lawyer, and was able to get him to help out. At that time we didn't know about legal aid.
This was the beginning of the end, in more than one way... I chose then, that I knew from what I learned in the courthouse and court room, that I really couldn't trust too many people in life, and just how shady the justice system can be as well. It didn't give me a lot of hope. It wasn't where I wanted to be and I knew that it wasn't going to do me any good having a record either.... Little did I know, that once your name is in the system, the lengths that cops will go to to keep you in the system...
Although, I made the choice to cut down and eventually stop the criminal activity that I was involved in.... it proved much more difficult than perceived. It was the beginning of police contact on a daily basis, subject to searches in the streets and constant harassment... I think the police wanted to catch us in the act of a crime, but I believe that they more so wanted to stir a reaction, so they could take any of us in on charges of their own making....
The court process was a long one, it took most of the year after all the delays and setting dates for trials, etc... The Crown attorney(Prosecutor), eventually offered a deal to us both to which we had to agrees to plead guilty and were given a complete discharge. I really didn't understand what that meant at the time, I just knew I didn't have to go to jail... what it meant for me was that the police were in my face, each and every day. But I did my best to not give them any reason to charge me again, I had made my decision and had gradually been making progress on my choices.
However, my choice to curb my criminal activity did not seem to curb anything else... My drug and alcohol use escalated, and my reality stayed in a constant haze... Instead of committing the crimes, I began recruiting people to do them... not the best choice I ever made, but the petty crime stopped and changed into ways of making money. Not much money, but I was making money that was helpful to me, it fed me and bought me clothes.. I basically still had a ways to go to achieve my true potential.
Karma wasn't something I really ever thought about back then, I thought by not getting caught, I was keeping myself out of trouble. I was still brought home by the police many times, mainly for being out late at night in places where I shouldn't have been. I was constantly in their sites and there was really no way out, except to stop. I turned my focuses to my interest in music in any way I could... at the time that wasn't much, but it helped me make some better choices. It convinced me that staying out of trouble meant much more than just not getting caught.
I ended up spending my full two weeks off, working in a shop. A former employee of my dad's and a old family friend. I was pretty much washing windows and doing odd jobs around the shop, they couldn't really give me any real work to do, and didn't have enough time to teach me. They did a lot of work with Mississauga transit, so I got to visit their garages got my hands on a book of transfers.... I made use of them that night, I think I rode every route in the city, end to end... It was also the first time I did acid by myself, so I had to stay occupied without getting into a lot of trouble.... So I took the bus... all of them, as far as I could tell.
At this time in my life, it seemed the more I tried to change my ways, the more my environment kept trying to prevent that from happening...Karma was definitely a bitch, in terms of facing my reality and making changes... when I look back at my life nowadays, I believe that the karmic consequences were playing their hand early on....
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