I grew up in Westdale, a middle-class neighbourhood in Hamilton, as the second of three daughters. My father worked for the Catholic church, and my mom was a homemaker. We were frugal, wearing second-hand clothes and hosting DIY birthday parties with homemade cakes and games. I never had cool snacks or flashy outfits at school—I was a tomboy who played sports. The other girls bullied me for it, so I started acting out.
But I was struggling. My parents were going through a messy divorce, and because I was an adult, people didn’t realize how much it hurt me. I had always been a celebratory drinker, but alcohol was slowly becoming my medication; I would party and drink several times a week. I also started occasionally using cocaine at parties, mostly to balance the alcohol. Around that time, a client—I’ll call him Noah—reached out on social media to tell me that he liked my business.
“You know, if you want to make some money, we could also smuggle drugs across the border on the way back.” I was completely taken aback. I said,and I asked him to leave. He texted me that night to apologize for being out of line, and he asked if I would still consider travelling with him if there were no drugs involved. I still trusted that he was a good person who had just made an error in judgment, so I agreed.
When we landed, I made my way toward customs. My body language was suspicious: my eyes were darting all over the place, and my travel plans were also suspect—Who spends just three days in St. Lucia? Still, I made it past the first checkpoint, picked up our bags and headed toward an officer on a podium. I looked out beyond the officer, just wishing for everything to be over and to go home.
My hearing finally came, after two and a half years of house arrest, in January of 2018. I pleaded guilty based on my lawyer’s advice, and I was given a four-year sentence with a chance for parole. I was escorted to a medium-security prison in Hamilton, which, to my surprise, was like a welcoming sorority. There were twelve of us in a house, and we all got along.