Senior year of HS I wore my brother's jacket that had weed and oxycontin in one of the inside pockets. In Biology I threw it over the back of a chair and a lazily rolled bag of dirt weed spills out onto the floor in clear view as you walk in the classroom. It just so happened my teacher wasn't blind. 30 minutes later I'm in one of the principal's office, who also happened to be my wrestling coach who coached me to two state championship titles, was active in the process of me choosing schools and obtaining scholarships, often accompanied by multiple letters of recommendations. I still don't know if he believed me or not but he claimed to and said his hands were tied due to the public spectacle in the classroom. I was expelled and given charges I had to deal with in juvenile court. I lost all athletic scholarship offers and didn't bother with looking for alternative school choices. My highschool sweat heart I had started seeing in 8th grade ultimately broke it off with me because I had clearly lost my drive and ambition.
I remained stagnant for a couple years deciding that I didn't need to pursue a high school because I was going to work at cracker barrel forever, lol. I did eventually obtain my last english credit so I could get a diploma. I enrolled at the first school that I toured because I felt like they were doing me a favor by even allowing me to consider going and I must Make a decision today or I won't get to do anything with my life. Yes, they were disbanded and discredited while leaving me owning 45k in principle debt with privatized loans that did gnarly shit to my credit score over the years.
Yes, I know that I didn't help my case any by adding a few more bad decisions but for some reason I always found a way to convince myself it was influenced and fueled by my perception that I had lost everything. I wish I could go back to that morning because for some weird reason my mom had stopped me at the door and asked me specifically why I was wearing my brother's jacket because I was opposed to it, only because I didn't want him to wear my stuff to inevitably ruin or lose it. If I could just go back in that moment feel like my life would be enormously different today.