Well, that certainly is a loaded question. However, since you’re here to read what I like to write about, and I really don’t like to write about myself, let’s dispense with the pleasantries, shall we?
My name is Mark. I live in the United States. I was born in 1976. I am considered white (although my family is doing research into our tree and it appears I have some Middle Eastern blood a few generations back).
I was a honor role student, back in school, from grades K through 10th. That’s when the mental and emotional dysfunction that was engulfing me began to affect my academic career. My grades began to slide, and despite basically failing my senior year I managed to graduate high school with a 3.3 GPA. I tried one semester of college and finally just dropped out.
I began to get meaningless jobs at gas stations, etc. And I started using cocaine and heroin. This continued until I was 21, when my dad finally had enough and told me to move out or join the military. So I enilsted.
Well, I managed to stay off of the hard stuff for about a year, in the Army. Then I went back to smoking crack. I met a girl and got her pregnant. And my oldest daughter was born on my birthday, in 1999.
Of course, I finally got to the point where I couldn’t pass a drug test and, despite my sergeant’s best efforts, I was discharged.
Well, now I could get back to killing myself slowly with crack! And that I did, with a newfound gusto. I spent a couple of months in county jail, for various misdemeanor offenses, and finally hit the big time when I signed a check that someone else had stolen and asked me to cash for them. In the state I was living, that is considered an act of forgery all on its own and I ended up incarcerated from 2002 through most of 2003.
One would hope I had learned my lesson at that point. But sadly, my stubbornesss was far too legendary to resign itself to such an ignoble defeat. So back to the pipe I went. I met another girl and got her pregnant and had a second daughter.
Now, we come to December 5th, 2004. The last day I ever did cocaine. That is a whole story by itself. It’s an amazing affirmation of the delivering power of YHVH (God). The point is that I remain free from the shackles of cocaine to this day. Amazingly, despite a lifetime of harmful chemicals killing my brain cells (and not all from illegal drugs) I still managed to score a 138 on an IQ test recently. One can only wonder what I would have scored, had I not taken the path I chose.
I found a successful job in 2005, got laid off in December, due to the economy, and got married a month later. Now I have an amazing wife that I love, and we have a child on the way. I am currently stuck in a dilemma…32 years old, no schooling, a wasted life (up to 4 years ago), $1000 of monthly child support stacking up, and looking for a way to become financially successful and provide for my family.
It’s hard to get hired with a felony record, you know? People talk of rehabilitation but when it comes to walking the walk employers won’t lift a finger to help someone like me.
I used to be a conservative Republican. Now I’m not. If you read my blogs, you may figure out why.
Anyway, that’s me in a nutshell. This is my blog. For better or worse….only time will tell.
Shalom,
Truthdetector, 2008
