Set Backs & Milestones: The Rizes & Falls

Part 21: Back 4 The First Time

After the allotment of time spent in the detention center in Guelph, I was finally picked up by a couple guys from the treatment center sent out to drive me down to the next group home... I was headed back to Toronto for the first time in years, or so it felt...

I was delivered to the next group home and that was where I stayed until my time was finished...  This house happened to be a treatment facility too, just much different than the one before, right in the middle of the city... Talking to the doctor was mandatory at first, in part to assess where the young offender's head was at, but also what route to take in terms of treatment of posible medications...  

The intake process was fairly long, about a week, but as soon as it was finished I was allowed to have visitors... The first visitors I had had in months, since being in secure custody... I hadn't been anywhere long enough since to earn a visit.  

I was allowed to see my family for the first time in quite a long time...It was August 1996, but as soon as September came around, I was immediately enrolled into the school or the house which was a short distance away on the subway... So I was also given a travel pass to get around the city, as well as bus fare....

Each day we were let out of the house alone and given different route to get to school, in order for us not to be hanging out together on the way to school... My route was really easy, most of the guys would wait for each other and travel together anyway, I just went the way I knew how to get there...

I felt a little out of place at first, especially at  the school... The teachers were ok, they seemed to care about helping some of us...It was awhile before I was allowed to go home for a weekend pass... I needed a challenge in my schooling in order to keep me interested, so the teacher gave me book to read and wanted me to do a book report on it...  

The book was The Chrysalids, the report became a project the inspired my writing talent once again, one the report became a document that encouraged the staff to help me get into a community school before I left custody....

The book report became more of an essay, and I was asked if it was ok if they published it in some industry journal that was internal for the company that ran the house and the school.  I never thought it would be that big of deal, and I never got to keep a copy of it either, something I regret still to this day... 

Writing had always been an interest of mine, I just never had the words to explain what I really wanted to say...  I did mostly creative writing back then, stories that weren't real, that may have been where I hit a wall...

When I started writing this book report, it just flowed like water, it was related to the story, but I took it and made it my own... relating aspects of the story line, plot, etc... to aspects of my life that I wanted to change in order to improve my life, change my ways and  get on a path....

The teacher thought this way of relating the book to my own life was very unique, especially considering that the book was something of sci-fi story... 

When Christmas came around this time, I was able to go home for the first time.  I was given a five day pass to go home for Christmas... So I left the group home on Christmas day and spent the time with my family, and was able to have some friends over to visit in the days that followed...   

It was the new year before I new it, I was trying to improve my life in as many ways as I possibly could.... I requested that I take my initial driver's license test, the written test...  I was able to and pass it on the first try...  I was also able to enter into a training program for kitchen work, prep cook, etc.. and started working on the weekends, and still had time to join the house on their outings to the gym and what not... I had been able to get weekend passes to go home almost every weekend, so I was going home and to work on the weekends, and then returning to the house afterwards...

It wasn't until February 1997, that I was able to get into a Community school, right at the last minute, just in time to choose my classes and start attending... because of my personal situation, I had to report to the house every time I got to school and before I left... This was my routine for the remainder of my time, I was able to schedule work for after school, this allowed me to have a little more freedom at time, then my home visits... let me out for short periods of time over night on the weekends....

It felt as if life was getting back to normal, there was still a few obstacles to overcome before I was really free... Probation being one of them...   

  

  

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