Who would have thought the day a woman in uniform stuck her rubber glove up my butt would be the best day of my life?

On June 20, 1995, after years of smoking anything that would catch fire, dropping acid every Wednesday at school, stealing cases of cigarrettes from my job at Piggly Wiggly in exchange for lines of coke, getting drunk by myself in the basement before driving to school, bingeing and purging (while driving!), stealing as much shit as I could possibly get my hands on, and lying about doing all of the above, I finally, finally got busted. This was the best and worst day of my life (so far).

I was lucky.  I was a female, had white skin, was still a minor (by only five months) and had parents who let me suffer the consequences of my actions, in a loving kind of way.

It was a lovely summer day and I’d just spent yet another afternoon stealing things I didn’t need and getting high before doing it, when suddenly I found myself wearing the orange jump suite,  sleeping on a metal cot in juvie, and spreading my lower pair of cheeks apart for a cavity search.  Yep, it kinda sucked.  Up until this day, I’d been hellbent on self destructing since that’s what I’d discovered I was really, really good at.  My parents had tried everything and spent thousands of dollars on treatment centers, therapists, nutritionists, groups, you name it, and nothing had worked.  I just wanted to be left alone to barf up donuts and get waisted with my buddies (or alone) and I was pissed that this getting arrested business was gonna ruin all my ambitious plans to destroy myself.  How dare those mall cops and the Tennessee court system.

Well, thankfully, getting arrested did ruin all my plans.  Instead I was put on state probation (which meant piss tests), lost my drivers liscense, was banned from the mall for a year and the store Parisians for life (though I doubt they’d recognize me now, right?) But that part was easy.  The hard part was being on house arrest for an entire summer under my parents’ supervision.  They didn’t trust me to be left at home alone, and the state wouldn’t allow me to go anywhere without them, so this meant spending every single minute of every single day, for an entire summer, with my parents, whom, by the way,  I hated at the time.  They wanted me to be happy and I just wanted them to fuck off and leave me alone.  Stupid parents. Why couldn’t I just have the kind who ignored me?

Before getting arrested, my only plan after graduating high school had been to get a house with my friends somewhere in Tennessee, pretend to go to college, and just get wasted every day.  Seriously.  That was my plan.  Sad, right? But after a summer minus booze, drugs, or the thrill of stealing, a summer spent reading a lot of books, becoming a master at puzzles, getting to know the parents I thought I hated so much, and painting my Mom’s house for four dollars an hour to pay off my lawyer, I magically morphed into someone who wanted nothing more than to have an amazing life once I got off house arrest.  My last year in high school, I got straight A’s, saved up to buy a truck, earned back the trust of my parents and the government (I passed all my pee tests), and  redirected all my energy to stuff that would make me not hate myself so much.  In the next few years, I graduated from the University of Montana, lived in Sweden, traveled around Europe by myself for five months, became a white water raft guide, a ski instructor, an Outward Bound Instructor, lived on the road for five years, and eventually moved to NYC to work in the film industry, become a storyteller and start writing.  What the hell happened to me?  How on earth did I go from being someone with such a strong desire to die to someone with such an enthusiasm to live?  I’m not sure really.  It’s been a long fifteen years, which included a few relapses and an inevitable involvement with a group of annonymous folks who hang out in church basement, but overall, pretty amazing I must say.  Sometimes I still hate myself more than I should, but who doesn’t?  All I do know is that anytime something crappy happens in my life, I remember the worst day of my life, and think how great that one turned out to be.

If the pigment of my skin had been darker, I might not have had the opportunity to turn my life around.  If I’d had parents who didn’t give a crap or who bailed me out like a lot of privileged kids, I’d still be out there, trying to destroy myself I’m sure.  But because I’m lucky, I was given the opportunity to start over, stop being so damn selfish, learn to love life, to embrace the stuff that sucks.

Happy 15th Anniversary of Getting Arrested to Me!