The Real 60 Days In pt. 1

This is day 14 of a 60 day sentence. I swear that this time right here is going to be the hardest time I ever did. Primarily because I don't feel like I should be here. I mean, I did the crime. but it happened before I had decided to really get my life together. This happened a few months before I went to prison for something that I had already did. Although I'm mad about having to do this time, I can't say that I didn't need it. Funny I should say that right? I came home November 25th 2019 and got active real quick. I'm talking about working, full time in school and involved in a very popular reentry program I am still affiliated with. Thank god for them. I was doing all the right things but I was smoking weed like a Navaho Indian. This the first time I had come home with open cases....I had two of them. What was I thinking? Yeah they were only felony fives, the lowest felony you could get, but with my record I might as well had robbed a gas station at gun point. Both cases are dealt with now. Ill be on probation for the next five years, but I feel the 60 days incarceration on top of probation is a little much- regardless of my criminal history. I'll tell you what.....let me explain my predicament and you tell me what you think, taking a step further - tell me what you would do?

It was September 2018 and I was gong through some bullshit as always. Most of the things I go through is from stupid decisions that I have made. I'm just placing the blame where it belongs; with me. Anyway, I had just gotten kicked out of the downtown Columbus branch of the YMCA. I was in there doing the most-getting high and selling drugs. Somehow I managed to get them to give me an extension until November 2018, I can't remember the day. Long story short I had gotten charged with 2 breaking and entering charges but they ended up being thrown out. So while all of this is going on I had a job at a waste management company through a temp agency. I had recently enrolled at the American Intercontinental University in an Associates Degree program and I had entered into a lease in a shared living situation. I had sacrificed and I was making a little headway. I was involved with a girl who I was on my way to being in love with, or so I thought. I ended up moving in with her at her apartment on the west side of Columbus, right next to the casino. I hated that I had to move in with her, but I had nowhere else to go. Again, long story short. Her son's father and I got into a fist fight inside the house - we tore the place up. I still loved her but I wasn't willing to go through the drama with her so when she went to work the next day I left. I put what I could into 3 black book bags, everything I couldn't carry I threw into the dumpster. Old clothes, new clothes, it didn't matter. I only took what I really needed to survive. I also had a paycheck coming in in a couple of days so I was like to hell with it. I can make a few days. I can do my schoolwork on the computers in the library downtown, still work my position at "Fuzzie's Taco Shop" and sleep in the bus station. I know it sounds crazy that I would put myself into a homeless situation but I would rather do that than to have anything to do with any type of drama. Okay, here is where I made yet another fucked up decision. Let me back up a bit. Tw o weeks before I actually left my exes house I met a young balck guy named "Money" on a bus stop in downtown Columbus. He approached me out of nowhere, because I probably looked like a sucker, and made me a proposition. He asked me if I wanted to make some money. The obvious answer anyone in America would give is yes, hell yes I want some money. I has just started my job at Fuzzy's so I had at least two weeks before I got a pay check. He wanted all of my information the same way it appeared on my driver's license. After I gave it to him we agreed to meet the next day. When I saw him again he had maybe 5 or 6 payroll checks that some anonymous person had constructed with my name and address on them. The checks ranged from 7 to 8 hundred and seventy dollars or so. Never higher than that. These checks needed to seem real. So I jumped into the van they were driving and got comfortable.