Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

When I was sixteen, I dropped out of high school. For an entire year. And I figured that would be the end of my story, but I was lucky enough to get a second chance at a place called Alternative High School. Back when I attended over a decade ago, it was a place for pregnant teenaged moms, for recovering teenaged drug users, and, I guess myself—a hopeless teenaged halfbreed—all of whom still wanted to get a high school diploma. The building itself was a ramshackle misfit, an L-shaped brick facility which had clearly been repurposed from its original role as an elementary school, retrofitted for us. Crouched unceremoniously alongside the wide suburban arterial of Crowchild Trail. Grey-speckled industrial tile flooring, black leather couches in the hallways, a designated smoking pit by the parking lot, and teachers known by their first names. In a way, I redeemed myself. I completed grade 12 and 13, and successfully got my high school diploma at nineteen years old. And, a decade later,…