Crime and punishment. It's very black and white. The Justice system hauls you in, chews you up a bit and spits you out at a rate of knots, supposedly having turned you from Jack-the-Ripper-in-a-motor-car to driving Miss Daisy in one easy step.
Society has evolved into thinking that payment in kind is all to do with the Law and very little to do with actually trying to put right what you put wrong. Surely the best thing that could come out of a bad situation, is a lesson to stop it happening again? In my case, I am sure the public at large slept well knowing they were protected from me, whilst I resided at Number 1, block H of Durham (well, my bad jokes, most definately, but that's another blog entry...). Truth is, it wasn't 3 months having my freedom curtailed that stopped me driving like a prick. It isn't the memory of that that's keeping me on the straight and narrow now.
Seeing the scene of destruction, watching a man lying in the middle of the road, not breathing, thinking you've killed someone, that's the punishment. Not being able to help, not being able to fix the damage, that's what lives with you. Not a few months from a lifetime sitting in a cell with people who don't really care either way.
I'm not a doctor, biologist or millionaire, so trying to put straight my error isn't a simple task. It wasn't fixed by a year of Police investigation, interviews, court, prison, tagging or probation. There isn't an instruction manual in tidying up the enormous cluster fuck I created. So I've got to think creatively about how to make something good from something very bad. Like trying to turn a school dinner into a meal. Tough, but maybe not impossible.
One thing I can do, is tell the story to others. If that story stops one person going through the pain of the whole experience, it's been worth it. Giving something meaningful back is important, and that's what I'm going to do.
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