My Comeback

My Comeback

I had just moved to Wadsworth, from Cleveland, to live with my dad; it was he who had won the custody battle. As I went to school, I found it easy to make friends. It may have only been fifth grade but people were more accepting in Wadsworth than in Cleveland. I went to Isham in fifth and went on to Central in sixth. Partly through the school year, I had to move again.

I had a chance to start over once again, even though I was doing just fine in Wadsworth. We moved to Lafayette. I started school at Lodi Elementary, and had made more friends. As I continued on to Cloverleaf Middle School, I had run into some problems. I started to get into fights at school, started to get detentions, and started to neglect my schoolwork. As things got worse, my dad took me to court to have me charged as an unruly child. The court put me on probation. I had been given a curfew six a.m. to five p.m. Although on probation, my behavior did not become any better. I continued to be an "Unruly Child" and the terms of my probation became violated. The placed me in Medina County Juvenile Detention Center (MCJDC) for over ninety days.

After I was released from MCJDC, I went to a foster-group home. It was in Norton, Ohio. As I started moving in, the other people there were not very accepting of new people, especially my new roommate. At the beginning, there were several arguments and a couple fights between me and the other members of the household. After this just started to become more normal, I had to make an irreversible mistake. I once again violated my terms of probation. I had to go to court again, and this time I became a Delinquent Child.

Due to my mistakes, I found myself in the confines of a jail cell at MCJDC. This time I did not have to spend too much time in jail, I only had to stay thirty-or-so days. As I sat in my cell this time, I promised myself "I was going to get out of the court system." I was going to turn myself around. A week before I was let out of jail, I went to Swanton to visit two of the nicest people I have ever met, Douglas, and Sylvia Lee. For the next year, these two people would be my foster parents.

I found myself free from the detention center; I was going to keep my promise to myself. As I was taking the two-hour ride to Swanton, which is five minutes out from Toledo, I realized I was not the only one that was working on my side. My probation officer Jodi Smith, my caseworker Jeff Jackson, the Judge John Lohn, and many others had been working with and had saw that I could overcome my problems instead of them sending me to the Department Of Youth Services(DYS). Although I skipped out of going to DYS, I was also given a commitment to DYS. If I were to mess this up and get another probation violation, I would have been sent to DYS for a minimum of six months. That gave me more initiative not to screw this up.

I was in Swanton for a year, and I started and finished tenth grade while at the Lee's. I had to undergo many hour-long sessions of individual and group therapy. My councilor's name was Mike and though he was a nice person, he was very persistent on me about getting my work done. In Swanton I found many opportunities that I have not had yet, such as working off debts or earning money, I helped build a house with Habitat for Humanity, and I learned many simple things that I will never forget. Then the time came, it was time for me to go home. My dad did not participate in anything the court asked of him, so my mom got custody of me again. Now came time to move back home with mom.

After coming home, I started school at the Medina County Career Center (MCCC). I was transported by bus, from Medina High School to the Career Center and back. I had met up with some old friends from Cloverleaf and Wadsworth when I started school. At the MCCC, I was enrolled in a class involving computers. The class was called Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA), and I had the greatest teacher Mr. Wright. A couple months after I got there, we had to move because the proprietor would not