WE ARE: 5 women navigating our twenties in search of peace, happiness and love (or not). WE WRITE: about everything and nothing. From the insane to the mundane- you will find different paths taken, lessons learned and lives lived. WE THINK: you’ll enjoy it...Warning: Consumption of these views may leave you enlightened while intoxicated.

SO LONG, FAREWELL...

The View From Here will conclude on Friday, October 1, our third year anniversary. We would like to spend this month thanking all of our readers, followers, haters, visitors, family, friends, and fans for your continued support, encouragement, and comments over these past few years. Thanks y'all!
-The Five Spot

Friday, September 11, 2009

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!

3 comments:

Bellini said...

you are a nut! clearly during our textfest while watchin' RHOA -- i didn't think this is where you were going with your post! your past is your past, can't nobody hold against you what you did 10 years ago... hmmmm... we need to talk ...

Rum Punch said...

@ Bellini - Well I actually wrote this before RHOA. I think that yes ideally no one can hold against you what you did 10 years ago, but in reality that is not what always happens.

Let's say 3, 2 or even 1 year ago, you were a lil' lush who had a cut friend you used to meet up with every Saturday night. So maybe you change. Find religion. Have a pregnancy scare. Meet someone new. Whatev. You move on. And then one day old cut friend hits you up late one Friday night/Sat mornin, and says "I got some patron, now come over here and get up on this conscious d**k." Sure you could be "offended" that he stepped to you that way. But you also have to come to grips with the fact that at one point in time, you were that chick on his d**k. Heh. Now how you choose to handle his approach is up to you - but that doesn't mean people won't remind you of who or what you used to be...Good, bad or otherwise.

Bellini said...

true, life has a funny way of tracking our footprints no matter where we've been or going...well some would say let your actions speak louder than his words.