Checkin Me
Ya’ll won’t believe me when I say it’s not easy writing anymore. I took a break from writing to relieve some of the pressure that I put on myself. I am very serious about my future and I kept getting frustrated because although I love to write, I ain’t making no money at it. I feel as though I have talent and drive so I should be writing for a living. It doesn’t work that way.
So I stopped writing for a while and it felt good not to worry about it. Now, I have literally started so many different stories that are all saved in drafts. After I start writing them I feel like they are stupid. It all seems so incosequential. And for the first time in FOREVER, there are some stories that I just, don’t want to share.
~rubbing chin~
I don’t get it either.
I don’t know. Maybe I just need to warm up a bit. I’ll give it another try.
Lemme tell ya what happened today.
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At work
So I’m at the color copy machine about to take off my shoe and hit it. I call the man from Minolta a few times a month to service that thing and it’s getting on my nerves.
I hear a ring, it’s my cell telling me I have a text message.
I check it. It’s my girl Tamara in Tallahassee. The message reads: Call Tonya.
Tonya is my sorority sister who just moved back to Gainesville for a job. I introduced Tonya and Tamara back when I was in college and since they lived in the same city, they became friends. REALLY good friends. ~frown~ You know I don’t like sharing friends. I was mad at first, but I got over it. They are both really sweet so I figure they can keep each other company since I couldn’t be there. I granted them my permission to hang together. ~laffs~ (Raycita, 2005)
So I call Tonya at her office, she says she’ll call me back. I see that I missed her call and I call her back again.
When we finally connect she begins to tell me the story she started to tell me last night.
“So it’s 3:19am right.” she begins. “And my phone rings. Now usually I don’t answer private numbers but I decided to go ahead and answer it. When I do, it’s a male voice, ” she says and pauses.
“The man says to me, ‘Tonya. I found your number in my man’s phone. And I know you been sleeping with him without protection. My man has a disease and you need to go get tested.’ “
Tonya calmly says, “Who is this? And who is your man?”
The caller says, “Don’t worry about that. YOU KNOW who it is.” The caller has a feminine twang to his voice.
Tonya says, “I don’t even have sex so I have nothing to worry about.” She hangs up.
“GIRLLLLLLLLL!” I squeal. “Who playin on yo phone?” I roll my eyes.
“I don’t know girl. But it’s obviously someone who knows I am very serious about the man on the down low thing. Cuz they trying to get me excited over that. Don’t you know if I was sexually active, I’d be sweatin right now?”
“Well we ALL know you ain’t gettin none!” I say and laugh at her. “Well do you have any gay friends?”
She laughs again. “No, not one. The only gay man I see about once a month does my eyebrows. And he’s Vietnamese.”
“Well I don’t know. But they need to stop playin. BITCHES!”
“So what’s up with you?” she asks me. “How was your weekend?”
“Girrrrlllll!” I say and roll my eyes. “Now you know I had all kinda plans to relax this weekend. I took the day off on Friday so I could get my rest on early and my baby daddy said he was taking the boys and bringing them back on Monday. So that meant a WHOLE weekend with nothing to do but chill. I was so excited! My mind NEEDED this long break. My body needed it too. So Tamara came into town and we hung out all day Friday. We went to eat, get our feet done and run some of MY errands. So you know when I got home I was tired. Then had to deal with my biological father, then me and Tamara went out to the Hard Rock Casino and we didn’t get home until almost 4am. So I slept in until 11 cuz MARSHA calls me waking me up tombout goin to the movies later. I told her yeah and laid back down. THEN, my baby daddy calls me telling me he got in a car accident.”
“A car accident?”
“Yeah.”
“With the kids in the car?”
“Yeah… GIRL HE ALRIGHT! He just wanna do ANYTHING he can to mess up my weekend! He don’t never wanna keep the kids!”
“Girlll…” she says. I know she’s not feelin me but I don’t care.
“Be quiet. ” I hiss. “So he leaves a message on my voice mail saying he hurt his arm and he couldn’t drive. So when I got there to pick up my kids, his car was already gone but ain’t a damn thing wrong with his arm. AND he’s standing there with Hyper Chick herself (his girlfriend) who I hadn’t seen in a couple of YEARS. So Hyper Chick is standing there holding my baby hand. I raise my eyebrow as they walk toward my car. I shoot her a quick look and she immediately goes into this whole dramatic production of slobbering all over my kids, talkin bout, ‘Bye baby! I’ma miss you! Gimme a kiss babies!’ My heart just STOPPED. I know this B..Chick ain’t slobbing my babies down in my face!”
“Girllll…” Tonya says.
“So I just got my sons by the hand and put them in my car while my baby daddy and Hyper Chick watch me. I get in and before I close the door she says to me, ‘Nice seeing you again Ms. Tee.”
“Did you say ‘bye’ back to her?” Tonya asks me.
“Hell no! Fuck that bitch!”
“See! You wrong Tee.”
“How am I wrong? I don’t have to speak to HER! I can’t stand HER! You seem to forget that the last time I saw that hoe she was TRYIN ME at my own BABY DEDICATION at church! In front of MY own friends. And I ain’t say nothing to her ass. HELL NAW! I was nice then!”
“Girl, you know you wrong. That girl spoke to you and you didn’t speak back. Do you know what that make you look like? You look like the bitter ex girl who ain’t over her X. Tell me something, Do you still want BABY DADDY?”
I shudder.
Silence.
“Girl, don’t try me like that!” I hiss into the phone.
“Do you still want Baby Daddy?”
Silence.
“I’m about to get upset.” I say.
“You’re already upset. But I don’t care. Just how REAL you are with Tamara and how REAL you were with me when I was going through that mess with Jeremy, I’m being REAL with you. You acting up. Speak to that girl. Cuz if you don’t, she’s gonna be laughing at you saying, Ha ha I got what she want. She want my man. They probably both laughing at you everytime you act like you can’t let it go.”
“But she TRIED ME! She’s trifling! I have NO respect for her, laying up with a man when he has a baby on the way. She ranked the game. She had no respect for me as a woman, how could I respect her as a woman?”
“How many years ago was that?” Tonya asks.
Silence. My heart is breaking, slowly.
“Tonya.” I say. Then fall silent.
“You got to get over it. One day you’re gonna have someone too. You’re treating her just the way he treats you. And I know you don’t like it when he ignores you and acts like you ain’t worth nothing. You doin the same thing and making yourself look bitter to the world.”
Silence.
My heart is broken.
I’m almost in tears.
“So I gotta be nice to this b..chick who TRIED ME… and she ugly?!”
“Why not? She is going to be a part of your children’s lives for a long time. As long as she’s good to the boys, why are you so mad? Let it go.”
I turn around to face the wall so that no one can see my tears.
“She get to parade around with MY KIDS and my Baby Daddy and I get to be alone every night and hear him talk bullshit to me about how I’m an unfit mother and I have to BE NICE TO HER! GREAT!”
“You’ll get over it Tee. I love you and I have some work to do. I gotta go.”
We hang up.
I hate Tonya.
I really do.
I realize that I’m always dishing out my TRUTHS. Cramming them down everyone’s throats. But when it comes time for me to take it, I can’t. It hurt. A lot.
But she’s right. I have to let that go.
But, the anger…The anger over all of that is all I have left of him.
This drama is so comfortable to me. It hurts but it’s what I’m used to.
What will I do without it?