Ramadan, death, driving

Here’s a little update on my life

I’ve been sort of obsessed with driving for a while now- specifically driving for work. I view it as a life hack. Getting paid to be on the road for hours at a time doesn’t really seem like work to me, but it pays so well. I started a transportation company 2 years ago blah blah blah and it was fun while it lasted but it didn’t really work out. There’s not TOO much money in non-CDL driving so I’ve been trying to get my commercial driver license for like a year and a half, and I finally got it last month. It still feels surreal to know that I am actually a CDL holder. The fact that I know how to drive an 18-wheeler is really mind-blowing to me. It took me like 8 months to complete the training which is kind of pathetic since I saw some of my peers complete the course in TWO MONTHS but there’s no point in comparing myself to other people so I’m proud of myself. Anyway, today I had an interview for VIA, which is the public transit bus line in my city. The interviewer was a sweet old lady who was just asking me questions and one of the questions was if I had any convictions or any kind of criminal record. At first I said no. She gave me a contingent job offer, had me sign the paperwork to go take the drug test, even gave me a start date and everything. I had the job, but something in my heart was telling me to let her know about the ONE thing on my record that I know of: a possession of marijuana charge I picked up 5 years ago. I didn’t think this would matter, but as soon as I told her, she quickly got on her computer and ordered a criminal background report right there on the spot. When it came back, her demeanor changed. She wasn’t allowed to tell me exactly what was on it, but she told me there were multiple charges on that hoe. This came as a genuine surprise to me, since I ordered my own background check a few days prior and nothing except for the possession charge came up, and it wasn’t even a conviction but a deferred adjudication. She ordered me out of the room and told me to wait in the lobby while she discusses my record with her manager. The 3 minutes I waited in the lobby were excruciatingly nerve-wracking as I waited for this manager’s approval. In my head, I was going over the possibility that I may have just shot myself in the foot, wondering if I should’ve even mentioned anything to her at all. The worst case scenario, I decided, would be that I didn’t get the job. I would simply need to move on to another employer. When she called me back into the interview room, this is exactly what she told me. She said “You didn’t put these infractions on your application, so we can’t actually offer you a job.” I responded, “The application asked if I had any convictions, and this charge wasn’t a conviction, it was deferred.” This is when she informed me that there were in fact convictions on my record, as a matter of fact there were multiple. This came as an absolute fucking shock to me because I had no idea. I’ve been caught with weed multiple times in my short life, and since Texas has some primitive laws regarding marijuana, I’ve actually been to jail like 4 times. However, I always thought these charges were dropped, since I never went to court or ANYTHING.

I left the interview feeling defeated, but I accepted that the universe has something way greater in store for me than being a bus driver for VIA. I was pretty sad, but I knew that I needed to take control of my situation immediately to prevent any future surprises. I immediately went to the library and looked online about ways to expunge my record, and this is when I learnt that the $7 record I had ordered online was actually NOT a full report. In order to get a full report, I needed to go to an office and get fingerprinted and pay $25. That’s exactly what I did- I scheduled an appointment for the same day (today) and went to the office, paid the $25 and my full record should arrive in 24-48 hours.

This whole thing has left me so confused on multiple levels. As I was leaving the interview, I asked the lady if I just should not have mentioned anything to her, and she told me that they would’ve found out anyway, and when they did, they would fire me. I find this hard to believe, since she scheduled a drug test for me at an outside office for the very next day. These drug tests obviously are not free. They cost money which is paid by VIA. Why would they send me to take a drug test WITHOUT first running a background check? They would just be wasting money on the drug test for someone who they’re not even sure has a clean background. It doesn’t make any sense… I’m convinced that if I didn’t mention anything to her, they would’ve never ran a background check and never found out about any criminal record. I am also stuck wondering if the reason I got denied a job is because of the actual record, or the fact that I omitted the information and (unknowingly) lied on my job application. Going forward, when applying for jobs I’m wondering if I should be honest about what I find on my full record in 24-48 hours, or if I should just lie and tell them I have nothing, since it seemed to work perfectly fine during this VIA interview until I shot myself in the foot by mentioning that one possession charge.

I really don’t know what to do. I might just go OTR, which I didn’t really want to do, but this one trucking company already offered me a job and I know they hire felons all the time so I think I should be good.. but I really don’t think being alone in a truck driving across all 48 states would be good for my mental health. Don’t get me wrong, I love traveling, but would this even be considered traveling? I would see the world, but my views would be restricted to the highway, which gets pretty monotonous after a while. Since I’d be driving someone else’s truck, I wouldn’t be able to leave the truck at a truck stop while I take an Uber to go explore the city. I’d literally be stuck either on the road or at truck stops for 28 days every single month. Truck stop life can be interesting, I guess, but I’m a pretty anti-social person at times so I don’t think I’d necessarily WANT to go socialize with truckers during my time off… i really wanted to be a bus driver because I enjoy customer service and talking to people (contradictory to what I just said, I know). I like talking to people when I am serving them in some way, since there’s a sort of script to the conversation so it makes it easier. I have an interview lined up for the bus line in Austin, and I’m considering going to the interview and just straight up lying and saying I have no criminal record. The worst thing that could come from this is them finding out I lied and barring me from ever applying again. This would suck.. I’m really at a crossroads right now but I’ll just wait a few days for my report to come in and then figure something out. I just hate being unemployed so fucking much. It feels like my past is working against me which is ridiculous because I’m such a non-violent person. I should not have a criminal record at all but just because I like to consume marijuana at times I have to pay for predatory cops coming after me when I was a literal child. It’s not all bad though. People are losing their lives and their families in a genocide right now so I’m extremely grateful for the life that I’m living.

On a lighter note, this is my second year fasting for Ramadan. Last year, I tried it for the first time and I failed miserably, basically giving up after like the 6th day. This year, I’m going about it way smarter by understanding that people who commit to fasting have been doing it for years. They prepare their bodies for the extreme fatigue they’ll experience weeks before Ramadan even starts. Children and elderly people are exempt from fasting because it can be so hard on them.  Keeping this in mind, and knowing that I am a beginner to this tradition, I am allowing myself to consume liquids throughout the day. If I get REALLY hungry, I’ll allow myself some fruit as well. On the second day of Ramadan I ate a tortilla. Last year, this would’ve killed me mentally, but this year I have a more mature understanding of the practice. I understand that fasting is supposed to teach me discipline, and remind me what it’s like to experience hunger in order to build empathy for people who are starving unwillingly. It’s not supposed to put me through hell. As long as I make an effort, Allah will notice and bless me. Aside from that, I really feel a responsibility to practice Ramadan this year for obvious reasons (Gaza). There are around 2 billion Muslims in the world right now, and knowing that 2 billion people are fasting at the same exact time is very comforting. This year the mass consciousness vibe feels way more important and almost necessary.

Hunger to me is very similar to sleep deprivation, something I experience pretty regularly. Both of these things make me feel scared. I don’t know how to explain it with words, but there is a profound sense of fear that comes with being sleep deprived or hungry. It creeps up on you, growing in intensity as the day goes on. You start to think about really fucked up things, like the fact that your parents are going to die one day, and you’re reminded of the fact that your body is so extremely fragile and we are in danger of dying every single day. It really doesn’t take much to die. One car accident could wipe you off the face of the earth and destroy your entire family in an instant.

I’ve been wondering why when a famous person dies, we as a society feel almost… happy? It’s weird. We celebrate the person and the whole world knows their name for a few days (depending on how famous they are, of course). Is it because we are happy that their soul is finally free, that they’ve achieved the ultimate goal: eternal rest? Is it because we’re grateful for the contributions they’ve made on earth, and we’re acknowledging those contributions fully now that they’re gone? For example when Mac Miller died, I felt sad, as did the rest of the world, but there was weird sense of morbid pride. Same thing with xxxtentacion. I was almost happy that their soul was free, it felt like I was allowed to really, really enjoy their art on an entirely different level. It’s different than when a family member dies- that feels more like how death is supposed to feel.  We mourn and grieve and cry. But when a famous person dies, we feel like we need to rejoice in some kind of weird celebration. Is it just me? Maybe it’s because when an artist dies, they’d don’t REALLY die. No one ever really dies, I guess. On some N.E.R.D shit

^an image supposedly taken by a camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite in August 2015, at a distance of 1 million miles.