LH .. but that reciept doesn't have your name on it.

LH .. but that reciept doesn't have your name on it.

This is my geesh 6th attempt at composing this entry. Each time I start a wave of emotions passes over me and I start, stop … delete.
Well, here I am. I deleted all of my blog enteries and want to post just this one because I feel it captures my thoughts most accurately.
Let me start by with I loved Erick. We met when at a time when we both were starting anew. I’d just secured an internship and he was at a crossroads in his career. We got serious when I moved to IL after graduating and he’d just started his grad school studies.
What I loved about Erick was his drive. I felt connected to his pain. What won me over were the things he shared with me about himself and ideas for the future. I did believe that we shared many of the same values. In fact after hearing his tales about his parents I felt badly for him.
I don’t hide that my mother and I have an extremely strained relationship. I have an idea why she’s treated me badly but it is what it is are relationship may never be what either of us wanted but I love her and she loves me. My father has loved me from the moment he discovered that my mom was pregnant. I am their mracle baby. Priro to getting preganat my mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer. It was caught early and my parents wanted another child badly. That’s where I began while in labor my heart stopped beating for what seemed like an eternity but thank God I am here.
Although I never had the relationship I desired wth my mom my dad more than made up for it. He encouraged me and love(d) me with all his heart. My childhood has so many happy memories in large part to his presence. Although physically intimidating my father was a teddy bear to me. I remember my friends being afraid of him because of his stature. He’s a big guy with a big heart. All is right with my world as long as my father is happy.
I talked to my dad about LH. In fact my father was amazed that I’d brought my relationship with him up in conversation. This was the first time I did something like this and as long as I was happy so was my dad.
LH didn’t have this luxury. Based on what I know of him and the things he’s shared with me his parents didn’t view him as an extension of their love. He was sorta a status symbol. They’d made it and they could show just how wealthy they were through LH. At a basic level I believe his mother loved him it seems that she did hold those basic maternal insticits that must women have somewhere inside. His father I don’t know there doesn’t seem to have been ANY love there.
In the first few months that I knew LH it was clear that love was foreign to him and when I’d do nice things or said something that showed I cared he REALLY enjoyed it. Early on I remember feeling so GOOD from seeing his smile. On the first of his birthdays that we spent together I travelled to Chicago for the weekend. We had a good time it had been rough up to that point and by some miracle I’d put some money asde to get him a gift. We were in Nordstrom downtown and walked past a watch he clearly liked. Red with some bling. It brought me so much joy to see him smile I got him the watch and he was happy. There was no talk about bills or trying to figure out how we’d make ends meet. Nah, I was simply able to spend time with my boyfriend and had the ability to get him something nice. That was a GREAT weekend.
What bothers me and why LH and I have had a rollercoaster ride in our relationship is due to our hang-ups. When I love I do so with all my heart. Lisa doesn’t let everyone in and those that I do are worthy of my entire heart and all that I am. I don’t play relationsjip games. If I profess my love for someone it is sincere. Which accounts for why I’ve said things to LH that were so extremely harsh.
I let him into my world to my heart. His circumstance didn’t inhibit my love for him and that is at the core of why I’ve as he would say “gone out of my way to hurt him.” LH got my level best.
At a time when he had nothing I didn’t care. I liked him and enjoed the person he was. Not this nickel and dime bullcrap women in this world play. He made me smile and it was refreshing to be with a male that I not only enjoyed but one that understood me.
LH heard about all the pain I’d endured and I remember vivdly the things he shared with me. It broke my heart. We were at a crossroads and when everyone around me was telling me to RUN my heart wouldn’t listen. Off tending to his studies LH was sued by a “friend.” She was taking him to court to get his unpaid portion of rent owed to her. He told me about their situation. She’d “stalked” him and moved to central IL following him. She moved into his apt complex and lived directly across from him. He’d com on hard times and moved in with her. Now she was mad that he wouldn’t marry her so she was suing him to get even.
The funny thing is for someone who was such a stalker she got her money and bounced. Never to be heard from again. I paid that debt for LH and so many others. Why? He was so driven and in the location that we both lived it was so clear that the blackfolks out there gave up on life and settled for a good job sans any sort of enjoyment. LH and I we vehemently rebuked that way of life out there. I LOVED that about him I may not be the smartest, most attractive person but I KNOW I want more out of life. I’d fought and overcame so much in my life I wasn’t going to let that place get me down.
So we kept on with our relationship. Just prior to me moving to IL LH would call we’d talk on the phone, IM, and email on the regular. In fact while I was on spring break in NOLA he’d begged me to stay on the phone with him b/c he missed me. I moved and he was my #2. A guy that I dated my freshman yr in college came back into the picture. We had a GREAT time and I’d spend a majority of weekends with him and LH during the week. LH knew this and on a few occasions he’d be mad at me for not spending time eith him. On one of my trips I was retuning to IL and LH invited me to his place. He’d told me he was going to start a fire and we could hang when I arrived. I LOVE fireplaces and LH and I would enjoy many a fire with champagne good convo and nice intimacy. I enjoyed intimacy with him but it wasn’t because of his abilities in the sack. It was b/c I enjoyed him the person. My ex he could put it the Hayelll down that probably accounts for why I’d go visit as often as I did hommie was on, off, around, underneath, around the corner on POINT.

So it began LH could not seem to make ends meet for the life of him. I felt for him at this point I was in love he was like family to me and desite all the things I knew I should not have dealt with I did. My bad. I KNEW I wouldn’t be able to respect him as a man if I kept supporting him. Honestly, I stopped respecting him early on in fact it happened the day I’d returned to my apt from my second job and LH was talking about how he needed to find somewhere to live quick because his mother was renovating her home and he had to leave. He didn’t have to say it I heard it in his voice. It came to the point where I knew when he was about to ask for money by the tone of his voice. At that moment I was disgusted by LH. Here I was supporing him, paying his bills, he’d had my brand new car and I was driving his trying to save money to have its many repairs completed. He didn’t have to pay his mother rent yet I was the one working 2 jobs? I didn’t have major debt. Maybe 8K at the time and I’m dead tired from working 2 jobs and coming home to an empty apt. Huh?
I felt ill. At that moment I no longer saw LH as a man and yet despite these feelings I still felt for him. Like I said he was family to me and I don’t bail on family. That’s the beauty of family no matter how much they fall or what mess they’re in you always have love for them. You stay loyal to them. This is how I felt about LH. He was going through something. Unemployed, living in his mother’s home, trying to make it in this world it really broke my heart. Here he was 2 degrees and hoping he’d get a position as a substitute teaching gig that didn’t even pay $100 a day.

It didn’t all come down to money. I knew LH wasn’t terribly affectionate but he left me in my darkest moments. As I miscarried our child he was somewhere studying. As I lost my grandmother and didn’t have money to go see her laid to rest he was out being “next level” on my dime.
As I look back now I deeply resent LH for all the things I did for him that he doesn’t give a fugg about. When he was studyng in DC I was the one sending him money to pay his rent. When he didn’t know how he was going to pay his debt owed to Northwestern I was the one applying for loans t help him.
He doesn’t quite get how I could be so mean to him. Or how I could go out of my way to say hurtful things about him. He does think highly of himself because it was like he was under the impression that I SHOULD be doing these things for him and after 7 yrs of this cycle I’d reached MY breaking point. I looked LH in the eye and told a lie. I told him I was pregnant and went as far as buying prenatal pills. In that moment I didn’t recognize myself. I was ashamed and didn’t say much as he stood in my apt yelling, grabbing me by my collar and hissing “he wanted answers.” I didn’t say a word. He ran out yelling I was going to pay and I’d be sorry. I locked my door and went to sleep.
LH lied. He called the police and told them I hit him. In the police report he told them he’d called me a slut and a whore and I slapped him. He’s a liar. I did nothing like that. I went to jail. I was done with LH. For someone who was so threatened by me he was calling me like crazy asking why I lied about being pregnant. I told him why.

Then here comes January 2007. After that ordeal with LH I was tired I didn’t know who this was why would I act like that? I was hurt and ashamed. I was also VERY angry. I often prayed to God why. Why did I have to go through something like this, why after all that I’d been through as a child did I have to deal with someone like this? Why hadn’t I found the man that complemented me and appreciated me and my heart? Why is it that LH can be off having a grand time and I am in this space. Where was my justice?
Well my answer came to me … on January 4, 2007 and January 29, 2007 Erick’s father and mother died. It caught me off guard when LH sent me the text stating his father died. I invited him out that night and told him to call me and I really did want him to be ok. The things he’d shared with me about his father played over in my mind and I was worried about him. Scared that he may kill himself. LH and I went out that next night. Erick was a zombie. It was eerie his eyes held no sign of life. His hair was ungroomed. His face did not glow with life. He looked like the walking dead. It terrified me and something in me had a feeling this would be the last time I saw him alive. He needed money and was about to go abroad to bury his father. I remember walking away after our night together and thinking serioudly I’d never seen him again. I went home and cried, cried, cried, cried, and cried. I woke the next morning for work and couldn’t go in b/c all my sobbing had swollen my eyes to the size of cherry tomatos. It was terrible. Then his mom died.
I know I shouldn’t give a dayum about him and most women would not that is the difference when it comes to me and my feelings. I find it odd that all these “easy to talk to” women were no where to be found when LH didn’t have a pot to piss in much less the ability to provide for his basic needs. I kinda smile to myself when he talks or compares me to “southern belles” these next level women who wouldn’t and didn’t give him the time of day in his dark moments. When he’s exclaim on almost a dialy basis how he’d wish he were dead. All the time when he contemplated suicide. Where were these ladies? Off looking at fashion? Or being easy to approach?
My issue with LH is not that we didn’t work out it is more so the absolute of appreciation of me and all that I have been to him. I don’t wish death on anyone and when his parents died it hurt me to the core. I wouldn’t wish this to happen in his life as much of a jerk that he is no one deserves this. Not one single bit.
LH is not dumb by any means for years he knew what a good thing he had in me and wasn’t champing at the bit to leave. The difference now is that he’s lucked out with his parents passing. I really do wish money didn’t mean more to LH than love. I really do wish he didn’t care more about a new polo shirt than he does actual people.
LH will never go to visit his mother’s grave site and he’s not hurting b/c he loved his mother. He’s hurt because he knows that he can never change the way he isolated and punished his mother. He’s sad b/c he’s a poor example of a man. He realizes what he had in terms of love and he can’t ever get that back. He sees the cycle that he put his mother through and instead of living up to it and changing he’s still a jerk. An arrogant jerk that pulls people in by putting up this mystique of being next level.

Next level is so not punishing your mom, using her and being a total ass. Next level is not putting others down when you beg for money, take hand outs from any and everyone. Next level sure as heck is not having the ability to buy nice things only b/c you got money from your parents. Next level sure as heck is NOT living in your mother’s home at th age of 36 and for the 7 yrs prior to that. Fix your face LH and please do read off that name that is printed on the recipt of your clothing. I bet all that I have it doesn’t read Erick.