Thelma & Louise… in To Whom It May Concern

How tf did we end up here? We were the best of friends. We reconnected after high school. I was pregnant with P, you were pregnant with T. We bonded over our pregnancy woes. From there, our friendship blossomed to where we were as thick as thieves. Through terrible relationships, awkward yet rewarding situationships, we had each other’s back. We, as you liked to say, each other’s baby’s daddy’s since we took care of our own together. You would watch all the kids (5 at the time, 3 of mine and 2 of your own) so I could pick up extra shifts. I even stayed with you for the summer so we’d both have babysitters while the other worked. We spent that summer ‘stacking bread’. Created many awesome memories for our kids. At one point we were willing to go to war for one another. One day, one of my guy friends pulled me aside and told me that I should be careful with hanging out with you because you had made quite the name for yourself due to your sexual proclivities. He warned me that I would end up having a similar reputation at least by association. I was dumbfounded. How could you have gained that kind of reputation? I thought you told me everything. I stored the warning in the back of my mind. I let you know what was up, you of course denied everything and I felt inclined to believe you.

Moving forward, you would have random men in your house when I would come over for our girl time. You knew I was skeptical of being around new people, so I never understood why you chose to have me over. I remember one night in particular. My mom watched the kids for me so I could have an evening of free time, as I was busy working over 50 hours a week. I came over and you had two drug dealers in your living room while T and A were in their room. Which is something I didn’t understand about you because you had childhood trauma from a similar situation with your mother as a child. It was in that moment that I realized that my guy friend might have been on to something with his warning.

At one point during a tipsy crying tiff that we had, you asked me if I thought you were a hoe. I asked you if you wanted the truth or the bestie answer. You asked for the truth. I told you that your actions were headed that way, but I still loved you. We laughed and kept it pushing. Later down the line you had fallen out with one of the guys you were talking to, you were clearly wrong. You, yet again asked for my opinion. I always gave you the option of truth or bestie opinion. You chose truth, the very second I told you that you were wrong, you got pissed off and wanted to argue how right you were. Shortly after that we stopped talking for a month or two.

Those two months were my most peaceful. You loved drama, you were only happy for others if you were happy yourself. One day you called me out of the blue. You were stressed about your girls and wanted to vent. To validate your feelings I said, “I understand being stressed honey I have three kids.” That triggered something in you because you went off. “You don’t understand my stress, your kids are well behaved, they listen to you, hell my girls listen to you and you don’t even have to yell at them.” I sat there stunned. How long have you been comparing our kids. You had to have felt that way for quite some time. When did my kids become the angels and yours the hellions. You even threatened to put your kids up for adoption. You girls are just as “perfect” as my kids. They listen, they’re well behaved (I kept them overnight a few times). The only difference between you and I… You yell at your kids, I talk to mine. You beat your kids, I put my kids in time out.

How do you get mad at someone because your kids listen to someone other adult? I never had problems with the girls. If I asked them to sit down on the couch and watch tv while I cooked, all 5 children would sit down, eating a snack until I was done cooking. When you asked what I did differently, I told you to talk to them, not yell at them? You looked at me like I was crazy and speaking a different language.

Let’s skip ahead when I got into a new relationship. At first you were happy for me. You were pretty happy in your relationship as well. When shit hit the fan with that relationship, each conversation we had about our men, you suggested that I leave mine. Later that mentality was the downfall of our friendship.

Skipping ahead to the time when you found out you were pregnant with your third child. You told the father and you broke up. You went through a lot emotionally. We had long ago expressed that our respective family members were off the table for the other. We agreed and did our special handshake, which sealed the deal as an unbreakable pact. At some point you met my cousin, my cousin and I were super close. One day you told me that you found him attractive. I gave you the advice of not to do it because I knew how he treated women. Hell we used to laugh about the dog shit he would do over a couple of beers. I didn’t want that for you. I didn’t think I would have anything to worry about because YOU brought up our pact and said you would honor it blah blah blah.

A few months later, I arranged a sitter for you so we could spend the weekend a couple of hours away from home, have a nice spa day and we would go out to eat at one of our favorite spots. It was when I told you of these plans that you felt the need to confess that you had tried to sleep with my cousin but after giving him top, he couldn’t keep it up to fuck and our whole town knew about the experience.

The crazy part of it all is that I didn’t care about you sleeping with him..or attempting to. I felt like karmic justice was served damn near immediately. What set me off is that you couldn’t take accountability at all. Which caused me to reflect upon all the years of friendship.. that reflection opened my eyes to the fact that you’ve never taken accountability when you’ve been wrong. It was always about the emotions that led you there, who wronged you (whether it be from childhood trauma down to your baby daddy drama) to the fact that you’re dealing with depression. News flash honey we both dealt with depression and anxiety. I chose to focus on the positive in life where you chose to live in the negative. You had no idea that I had saved up money to buy you a washer, a dryer, a car and enough money to bring your rent to current. I always felt like if I ate then everybody at my table ate too.

The lack of accountability was the end for me. I blocked you and I’ve been at my happiest. I tried helping you by putting your on to whatever I learned, whatever I accomplished. I wanted us to grow together, make boss moves together. You taught me the truth behind, “You can’t help someone that doesn’t want to help themselves.”

There are times I miss you, something happens that reminds me of you and the girls. I still check on you from time to time through one of our mutual friends. Whenever you need something and mutual friend tells me about it. I buy it, give it to mutual friend, and then he gives it to you. I miss you and hope all is well with you and the girls. I still have tons of love in my heart for you. I just don’t feel like I want any of the negativity back in my life.

Love and Peace