Untitled--Armando

November 5, 2015, the day I committed a felony and suffered the consequences.   As a thirteen-year old boy only a few months into 8th grade, I was still the nerdy boy with glasses who mistakenly confused the difference between right and wrong.  Little did I know that me being expelled and arrested would lead to the person I am today.

When one of my best friends had told me about another kid, who posed as gang banger, had been threatening him and detested the Mexicans in our school, we decided to take matters into our own hands.  Out of fear, I kept a knife in my backpack the next day for my “protection”. Somehow word got out and I was in the office along with about another 10 students who were involved and when we were searched a few of us had different kinds of weapons.  Once the police came in to write up their reports, I was scared and full of regret. After a few hours of waiting in the office wondering what was going to happen to me, the boy who started the issue and my friend and I were put in handcuffs and made our way to the police station.  There I had to go through the whole process to file my case into the system and got scheduled a court date and was given my expulsion form from my middle school. The worst part was having to have my parents come pick up their criminal child from the police station and having to explain what had happened. 

The only reason I was able to attend a public high school and not stay in continuation school for 4 years were my grades.  I was put into a program with 5 other boys who were in a similar predicament as me. I spent 9 months in this program which kept us isolated from all the students and staff on campus.  By this time, my previous friendships had vanished, but had made one close friend from that program. At first, it was difficult to adjust to a completely different environment which was the start of my transformation into a different person.  The friend I had made helped me get through my problems and I saw him as a role model. During those 9 months, I slowly began to take after him. He taught me how to be humble and appreciative of what I have and what I can do with it. I am thankful for that program because it showed me the real world at a young age which forced me to deal with my problems directly. 

Our mistakes do not define who we are, and I can vouch for that because I was able to grow from my mistakes and make something of myself. It did not take long after being called a criminal, a disgrace, or how I wouldn’t do anything in life to change my attitude and strive to be the best person I can possibly be.  This led to one of the reasons why I kept myself isolated from everyone else because by the end of it, I wanted to say that I was able to learn and grow without the help of anyone else. The person I was before the incident was a completely different person after. I used to regret what happened, but once I got myself organized, I realized that my mistake broke my shell and changed my perspective on how I was going to live my life.  If there is no suffering, then there is no progress. I had to learn the hard way that when we make big mistakes, rather than be discouraged, take advantage of the situation and strive for redemption because people will only see and judge us based on our mistakes but not the effort we put in to fixing them. I would like to believe that this happened to me for a reason because I pushed myself to work hard and not let the past determine my future.

I look back now at my 8th grade year, wondering what could have been if I simply would have done the right thing and prevented the whole situation from even beginning, but a part of me is content knowing I was man enough to get myself out of the hole I dug myself into.  Being able to overcome something I thought I wouldn’t be able to gave me a feeling of capability and opportunity. I became confident when it comes to any situation because I now know I can get through it.