My kidingarten teacher.
I was a stoner, a bully and a loser. I never did hard drugs. But lord oh mighty did I love to smoke. Shove 20 camel wide cigarettes in my mouth? Sure why not. Probably funny. Right? You read that and say to your self "dumbass," and you would be right.
Pot. God I love weed. Come to find out I can get addicted very easy to almost anything.
I would get into fights in high school just because. Everyone needed to have a "gimmick." Mine was to walk around wearing a trench coat and picking on smaller kids. Or anyone that dared to question my authority.
God looking back I was the dumbest piece of shit alive. I'm not proud of those days.
Off the top of my head things I did, include but not limited to:
Beating up kids half my size.
Getting kicked off the bus for lighting a kids hair on fire.
Getting kicked out of normal high school for an alternative high. (I don't remember why)
Kicked out of the house.
Getting kicked out of that alternative high.
Just super lazy.
Jesus fuck was I lazy
Got arrested for smoking a cigarette and running from the police. Tried to hid in my car and pretend I was asleep.
Nothing like opening your "sleepy" eyes with a gun pointing 6 inches away at your face.
Got into a few car accidents because: I dropped a cigarette and bent down to pick it up. Drove recklessly to impress a girl. [Minor damage] Drove 120 down a back County road with 3 other girls. Crashed the hell out of that car. Miracle only one girl had bruised ribs. ( we were on our way during lunch to play parcheesi....kidding to smoke weed.
Anyway by now you know I was a total douchbag. A few months into my senior year I was at my 2nd alternative school, living with a much older woman and had a dead end job. Life was great. Wake up smoke a bowl. Kinda sorta went to school, smoked a joint. Go to shit minimum wage dead end job. Come home, smoke some more. Have sex with sugar mama. Go to sleep. Repeat.
One night I was at a hotel party. I was getting high and talking about God knows what. And I stopped. I remembered her giving each of us in our class a button. On the button it said class of 2000. She told me I would be 18 when graduated high school.
Thats the moment.
Thats the moment when I said I didn't want that life. I wanted something more.
Stuff didn't change right away. But I did change my ways slowly but surely. Everyone else was out, I was home playing catch up. Came to school early and left late. Still worked crap job, still smoked and still had sex. But less and less with each day . I fucking worked my ass off. And I had a lot pf help. A ton. Trying to cram everthing I needed to pass.
I am forever thankful for the support I got from family, [x]girlfriend and the teachers. Its like they knew I was trying and they stepped up because I stepped up.
In the summer of 2000 I graduated. On time. 16 years later I'm married to a spectacular wife, with the 2 most beautiful kids in the world.
Life isn't perfect. But I wouldn't change it for the world.
If it wasn't for her. That button and those words. I don't really want to know what path I was going down....any way Ms. White was a great teacher, and my hero.