You Don't Know Me

Has someone from your past ever reappeared in your life, talking that yakkity yak, that jibber jabber, asking you to do this one little favor, or expecting something so outta this world from you, that it has you giving them the once over from head to toe, taking inventory of their seriousness, cocking your head to the side, and being like, “Excuse? You want me to do what? Muhfcuka you don’t know me.”

But they have to kinda know you to step to you like this right? Riiight. But maybe what they know is an old version of you. Like an eight-track, or a Betamax, or a PC. Heh. I remember seeing comedienne Sommore perform and she said, “one time I saw an old friend on the street and went up to her and was like ‘what the fcuk is up bytch? How you doing? Expletive, expletive, expletive.” Friend’s response: “um I’m saved now.” Sommore was like, “say whaat? When that happen? You gotta let a bytch know.”*

Change. Growth. Maturity. So obvious to the one going through it. So imperceptible to the rest of the world. I mean wouldn’t it be nice if you could walk around wearing a sign that said: BELIEVE ME I DONE CHANGED CAUSE IF THIS WAS XXX YEARS AGO I WOULDA CUSSED YOU OUT, BEAT THAT ASS, BEEN YOUR ONE NIGHT STAND, GOTTEN FCUKED UP AND STILL MADE IT TO WORK THE NEXT MORNING, LOANED YOU MONEY YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE ASKED ME FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE, LET YOU CRASH ON MY COUCH AND IN MY HEART FOR MONTHS AT A TIME, SUPPORTED YOUR RAP "CAREER", PLAYED THE FOOL.

In reality only people who are your constants can recognize your growth and praise you for it without calling you out on your past. You know not mention that was you who once slept with every other nig you met in a bar. Or who cussed like a sailor. Or who held grudges. Or who was at that no good’s beckon call. Or "took" her man. Or had that baby at 16. And then that abortion at 19. Or enjoyed one too many happy hours. Or who shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

But people who come in and out of your life don’t really know you at all. Just know the you from that time. And so that you is like frozen in their memory banks and you just can’t chip away at that block of ice. Can't make them see what you know for sure. That you done changed.

You are forced instead to see what they still see. The old you. And isn’t that what sucks the most – that when confronted by them – you have to confront the fact that you were once a different person? A bytch. A chick who wasn’t necessarily a whore, but may have had ho like tendencies. Selfish. Naïve. Mean. Foolish. A sucker. Young. A person who made what now seem like obvious mistakes. But you've gotten to the place where you know not to make them again.

And so wouldn’t it be nice, if when someone reappeared in your life, you could just hand them the poem below. Leave them with their mouth open, lips still moving and for x,y, z and then some, while you walk away. And don't look back. With plans to only meet them again when you both become extraordinary.

People from My Past

People jump from my past

to tell me when they knew me when

And I tell them

I knew them also

I tell them I have moved

so unnoticeably

to other worlds - - as they have done

I tell them once the friendship dies

we cannot accept the ordinary from each other

We must become extraordinary to meet again.

-- Tracy Connely

That's my time y'all! Happy Rum Punch Friday!

*Can I just say this is my one of my biggest "fears" that one day I'll be pushing my kids in a stroller, walking with my huzband, coming from worshipping the Lord, and I'll run into an old skripper from my waitressing at the Gentleman's Club days and she'll be on some, "don't I know you?" LOL!