Part 26: Choices Vol. 5, A Troublesome '98
As 1998 began, I started it homeless, so the way I saw it the only way to go was up... There was many significant improvements in my life, but the was also setbacks along that road that continued to challenge me. New jobs came and went as fast as they could interview me it seemed, I became very accustomed to getting fired within the probationary period which allowed most employers to get rid of me without reason... A car had entered my life, and maintenance issues became a regular things...There was the first crash, my first car accident... it was unfortunate, but I had to deal with it...
Over the course of the next six months or so, that car needed to have its transmission replaced twice, luckily we had the extra car.... the first time they were just swapped, the second time they were combined and rebuilt into a new one. My residence and my mailing address seemed to change more often then my job.
As I spent my summer fighting criminal charges in and out of court, I was able to get past those situations with relative ease, however, the trouble kept coming... under surveillance? Possibly, but it got to a point where I was getting pulled over by the police 3 or 4 times a day, just so they could search the car or harass us... in that time I was racking up unnecessary tickets, for just about everything one could think of...
Near the End of the summer, most of my friends at the time took jobs at the same place, I applied and was hired too, but chose to return to school and disappear for a while... Probably a good idea, our constant night out became a weekend thing for a while...
I was allowed to move in with my parents as school started, which allowed for some security for a time... I started back at the Toronto school I had attended successfully over a year prior... Now that some provincial laws had changed and the boundaries for school attendance were wide open.
In the Fall of 1998, at the beginning of the school year, I was very optimistic and new this would be there year for me to complete high school... After a whole year was lost, and getting kicked out of just about every school I knew of, complicated situations were my present existence at the time... Knowing things weren't going to made easy for me, I wasn't about to give up when I was so close...
My living situation was still very volatile and came to a head sometime during October or so, and lead to me having to walk out of my family's home once more without a fight, but with some harsh words from both sides... I wanted to continue with school, but also found that I needed to make some money along the way, soon finding myself sleeping on another friend's couch for a short time, and trying to get to school on time each day...
Already being close to half way through the first semester, the next event came as quite a shock to me, as once again I found myself under arrest and being held in the local lock up (again) for adults for the second time that year... Needless to say, I was disappointed with myself, but again had to deal with the fate in which I was presented....
After being released nearly a full month later, I was under very strict conditions.... I returned to school and continued where I left off and was able to catch up by doing a few extra assignments. I wasn't about to have another year go to waste... Although there was one teacher that could have cared less what my situation was. There was no more weekend parties, my parents allowed me to live with them until they moved... They had recently purchased a home outside the city, and were to move in March 1999... Which left me to fend for myself again, as I had intended on staying in my current school to finish the year as well as my high school diploma...
I was still on probation from the original conviction in which I had been recently released only a year prior... That put me within a year of finishing it for good, until the new charges were dealt with... My Sentence was one to be served on weekends, conditional release during the week,(like a temporary probation,) until the weekends were completed... As well as an extra year of Probation. That extended me original probation by at least six months... The way it was explained to me was that it was like triple probation, running simultaneously. I wasn't allowed to move without notice, My license was also suspended by the court for a full year as well...
This was a social life killing experience, but I was surprisingly ok with that because I was focussing on getting school finished, and had actually met a couple new friends after returning to school again... I got really lucky with my weekend sentence, I only had to serve the first weekend and only until Sunday evening... part of the sentence was to allow me to go back to school. The rest of the weekends were spent attending courses and workshops for Anger/Agression Management... This allowed me to get out of the house for the day and travel alone, have some time to myself....
Locked down inside my mind for a time, unseen in physical form although present, still invisible... I focused my mind on the positive things, things that I was accomplishing and even though I wasn't driving anymore some of the friends stuck around.. some preferred me not to have me behind the wheel considering the circumstances... The newest conviction was Dangerous Driving, though there wasn't much driving involved... It all took place in a driveway...
With an end date in sight, I closed out the year of 1998, in much the same way as it started... in trouble... not the same kind of trouble, but I was back in school and doing fairly well... With the additional probation order place upon me at my sentencing, it was clearly stated that I attend or seek some form of treatment again...
On top of school, triple probation, treatment requirements, etc... I felt pretty overwhelmed, with a new year was approaching I wanted to get everything done as cleanly and quietly as possible...
With '99 in my sights, and the end near, the anxiety was present at all turns and needed to be calmed... I also only had a few months before I would be on m own once again...
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