Finally accountable for my beliefs?

I'm a lot better now, but yesterday sucked a little. I had no idea what the process was for yesterday's jury situation, but I got there just before 9am as planned (rain and snow mixed, lots of wind, fucked up my umbrella, no real clue as to the layout of downtown Hillsboro), and met some of my fellow potential jurors. They called 16 for the day - 8 to report at 9am, 8 to report at 1:30pm. At around 9:45 they took 4 of our 8 off somewhere. They were not done by the time the bailiff came to get us at 12n for lunch.

We got back in the room at around 1:10 from lunch and the bailiff took us out and down the hall to a small court room, like probably where they hold hearings or something. Who knows. We filed in in a specific order, and to my surprise, not only were the defense attorneys and prosecuting attorneys there, but so was the defendant. I really wasn't expecting that. At all.

They questioned the first woman for about 45 minutes and let her leave when she was done. I was second. They asked a lot of questions, especially concerning my time in Mexico. That was fine. My answers are my answers. The worst of it was sitting in the same room as the kid whose life is pretty much in my hands. I imagine many of you don't believe it, but I seriously believe that all people are good - until something proves me wrong in so many cases - and to have this kid sitting there, accused of murder, it was like, oh man. What happened to you? Awful.

So then everything I have subsequently done I think in terms of this kid. Except that I went back to work when I was done around 3 (got in around 3:30 - 3:45) and worked til around 7:30 - that's MY punishment so it didn't apply. But like, I stopped on my way home at the 7-11 for smokes, and, you know, I could. And I chatted with Becky and my sister in law Jill and talked on the phone and washed my face and made coffee for this morning and went to sleep in a warm soft bed and got up this morning and took a private shower (though the fire alarm went off again and you know, that is NO WAY to start your day) and am sitting here... I kept thinking about that kid and where he is and what HE is doing and I KNOW we make choices in our lives and we have to be accountable for them, but it is so hard not to feel sorry for the ones that make the wrong ones.

I'll find out if I am actually a juror in like a week and a half or so. Maybe less.

This is going to suck.