The future scares me.

Even in my past, the future scared me. Ever since I was 17, and entering my senior year of High School, the thought about what lies ahead always frightened me. In April of 2004, just after the Good Friday/Easter Monday long weekend, some random student said something to upset me and that was, as they say, "the straw that broke the camel's back." I committed an act of aggravated assault causing bodily harm on this student which in effect, got me suspended from school for a couple of days. When I got home from school, I attempted to commit suicide, fearing the worst was yet to come. The only thing stopping me from committing suicide was the fact that my parents would soon be home from work and my grandfather (god rest his soul) was paying us a visit and that was one thing I wanted to be alive for above all else. I realize now, as I re-tell this account, that the future could have held one of two outcomes for me. Either dead, or in prison. Neither of which would have seen me graduating from High School. But at least in death, had I actually committed suicide, I would have been able to save face. But of course, if I were dead, I wouldn't be here right now, posting this. And if I were in prison, (assuming that student's parents had me sued) that would've meant 5 years to a lifetime (pending the possibility of parole) of languishing in a cell, still alive but stripped of my freedom. And on the outside chance that I did get paroled, had I actually been in prison for what I had done, I would have lost face and in effect, been shunned by family and friends and forced to live as an outcast.