J.L. Sapphire's Ex Chronicles- Part 2

Have you ever dated someone who just wouldn't leave you...no matter how hard you tried to make them do just that? Back when I was around 20 years old, I met this guy who was about eight years older than me. I had just given birth to my son (he's now 17...time flies) and his sperm donor had also gotten another girl pregnant a month earlier, so he decided to pretend my son didn't exist. Whatever. He was dead to me anyway, so  didn't care if he was around or not...my son would be cared for regardless, which was what I told him.

So, I was a single mom, trying to make it. I met this guy one day in a video rental store. He seemed really nice. We got to talking about some video, he was trying to convince me to watch it, but I wasn't sure it would be good. He ended up paying for it himself and said 'if I didn't like the movie, it wouldn't be my money wasted.' I thought that was really nice. Turns out, my neighbor and homegirl knew the guy well, and she decided to play matchmaker. I knew physically, he wasn't my type. He was short and shaped like Carl Winslow on the Steve Urkel Show. I'd been used to dating college type guys around my age. I told myself maybe I needed to change my dating habits, because look where I was- a single mother who'd had to drop out of college for a while to care for my child. So, we started talking. I tried to tell myself that even though I really wasn't feeling him like that, maybe I'd learn to love him later on. Later never came. I cared for him, but I never was in love with him, nor did I see him as my soulmate, or the man I would marry. My grandma would tell me, "You better stay with that man..he takes care of you and your baby." "Yeah, but I can take care of myself," was my response. And I could. I've had a job ever since I was 16, and I've always been very independent. so I didn't need him for that, nor could I make myself love a man...either it came naturally or I didn't want to waste my time anymore.

So, I began telling him that since I'd gotten enrolled back in college, I wouldn't have time for dating and maybe we could be friends. Either he didn't take me serious or he didn't care what I'd said. I would drop little hints in conversation about not wanting to be in a serious relationship. Nothing. I was around 22 or 23 then, and my friends and I began going to nightclubs nearly every weekend. I'd go out and leave him at the house...maybe he'd get tired of me doing that and leave. He didn't. Whenever I wasn't at school or work, I was out with my friends, never spending time with him anymore. Surely that would give him the hint. He stayed put. Finally, I wrote him a nice and sweet 'Dear John' letter and left it on his work clothes so he'd see it the next morning. He saw it and told me he would move his things out when he got off. YES! Finally, he got it. Only, after he'd gotten off work and was moving his things, my son (then a toddler) asked him where he was going. His response, "Your mama is putting me out. She don't want me no more." I swear my son looked at me like I was the devil. "Why mommy?" Damn! Playing off of my son, the ex says something like, "Can't we work this out?" Between his puppy dog eyes and my son looking like I'd betrayed him, I said, "Fine. You can stay." I was ambushed, I tell ya. 

Even though I told him he could stay, I made it clear my feelings were the same...I still wasn't feeling him like that. I still went out with my girls every weekend, I definitely didn't give him any, and I'd seen my first love at the club one night, and we messed around a few times. I've always kept diaries and journals, so I wrote about one of my escapades with my first love in my journal. As time went on, I began thinking that my ex was snooping through my things when I wasn't home, so I tore the pages I'd written out of my journal, ripped them into itty bitty pieces, and threw it in the trashcan in my room. I would come to find out about later on that not only had he been snooping through my things, he'd gone through my trash and come across the torn up pieces of the dairy..where I'd talked about my sexual fling. He actually taped the pieces back together and kept it for six months. He'd known the entire time that I'd cheated, and didn't say anything. He showed up at my house one day after we were finally over, asking me if I'd ever cheated on him. "What does it matter if I did or not; we're not together anymore," was my answer. Then, he pulls the torn up and taped up pages of my journal out of his pocket. I recognized the little flower that was on the top of each page. No he didn't, I thought. Oh, yes he did. I snatched it from his hands and read my own explicit words of my indiscretion. "You went through my trash and read my journal?" I yelled. He stood there all smug. "Yes, I did." "So what the hell you come over here asking me for if you already knew?" He really pissed me off, more than anything. No way in hell can I be silent for seven months if I have proof my man is cheating. 

Okay, so he knew. Whatever. I let him keep the journal pages as a souvenir....I mean, I didn't want it. He wasn't done yet. This fool drove over to my grandma's house, and read to her what I'd written. My phone rang and my baby sister was on the other end talking about, "Ooohhh Joycie," (her name for me) "Girl, this dude is over here at granny house crying, talking about you cheated on him with (first love) and he's reading her some piece of paper...oooh girl...you did that?" I really couldn't believe he went there. Mama told me I would regret letting that good man go, but it's about 15 years later, and I haven't regretted letting his crazy ass go yet. I wonder if he's still holding on to the pages of my journal that he dug through my trash to get. Good riddance.