I graduated with honors from a correctional boot camp in Wisconsin when I was 15 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And on my graduation day my father didn\u2019t show up. He called in to say that he\u2019d remarried and him and his new wife decided they didn\u2019t want a kid after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among other things, he complained that I was (at the time) a vegetarian and they didn\u2019t know what to cook for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said I don\u2019t know just put him back in jail. The staff and social workers were stunned. Mouths fell open.
Some of them cried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On went the cuffs and shackles.
And back I went.
They totally thought I was going to snap. I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sat in there alone and just broke down and decided the only thing I could do was forgive them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was discussion about where I\u2019d go from there.
I didn\u2019t want to go to a foster home and play \u201cfamily.\u201d
That ship had sailed.
The concept of a family was ruined for me.
I didn\u2019t have one up until that point and now I didn\u2019t even want one anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I said if you put me in another group home I\u2019m going to run away and you\u2019re going to sanction me and when you find me I\u2019m going to come right back here. Send me to my mom\u2019s, I\u2019m going to run away and I\u2019ll just be another face on a milk carton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three days and many hushed whispers later they came back and said they decided that was actually probably the best possible outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got a little graduation certificate signed by some of the staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sandra Jennings wrote \u201cYou have the ability to move mountains. And if you can\u2019t move them, then just walk around them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My high school tried to get me in trouble for truancy, they tried to have my license suspended\u2026 and really \u2026 hadn\u2019t they already done enough to me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got even with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thankfully some people in the probation office said nope, we heard he has a job in Madison and he\u2019s doing great. We\u2019re not touching him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I graduated with honors from a correctional boot camp in Wisconsin when I was 15 years old. And on my graduation day my father didn\u2019t show up. He called in to say that he\u2019d remarried and him and his new wife decided they didn\u2019t want a kid after all. Among other things, he complained that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7398"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12071,"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7398\/revisions\/12071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}