My first day back at work

On January 2, 2007, I started back to work.  It had been 2 months.  The longest period of time I’d ever been out of work since starting when I was 15 years old.  Thank the Lord, my application for short term disability was approved and I received all of my back pay.  I immediately sent a number of checks in order to get immediately caught up on my bills.

I was so grateful to be back at work.  I told my manager I would never complain again.  Coming as close as I did to completely losing my job and being faced with having to try and find another one with an arrest record was scary.  I had worked hard all of my life to have the job I have.  I worked hard through 5 years of college, watched for opportunities and jumped on them when I could.  All of that, 14 years of hard work, all of it just about taken from me due to a single false allegation.

The first day back was awkward as my co-workers hadn’t been told why I was out.  Fortunately nobody asked me, as they all assumed I was out due to my son’s diabetes.  Even still, it made for an awkward couple of weeks along with lots of working with Human Resources, including providing them with weekly updates on my case.

Regardless of how awkward, I was glad to be back.  Working helped me feel like my life was returning to normal and helped keep me occupied so that I didn’t think about the case all of the time.  My routine consisted of waking up early and leaving my parents house for work.  I had to leave early due to the 45-60 minute drive to my work from my parent’s house.  I would work until 4 or 5 then head to my home to spend 3 hours with my family each night.  Then turn around and make the long 45-60 minute drive back to my parent’s house.

I hated that drive and still hate driving that section of road to this day.  It just brings back far too many sad memories.  I seriously considered killing myself on that road a few nights.  Leaving my family each night and driving home alone was really hard on me.  It sent me into pretty serious depression each night.  But, I’m so glad I didn’t end up killing myself though.  I just continued to remind myself that my family needed me and that I needed to be strong.

Things were slowly beginning to turn in the right direction.  Still no communications with the DA.  She was still tied up in two major murder cases and we were being told it would most likely be fall before she would have time to talk to my attorney.  With DSS still engaged and managing the amount of time I could see my kids, we had plenty to work on.  We started to work on a plan to get DSS to close our case.