​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Hurt.

 

Gut wrenching hurt.

 

The kind of hurt that punctures you like a knife - - so brutally that you can physically feel the pain. You want to vomit, cry, explode, fight, scream, and hide all at once.

 

It was worse than your average heartbreak - - at least time can heal those…

 

This was more like a soul wound - - the kind of hurt that changes you as a person forever…

 

This was the kind of hurt that my mom didn’t prepare me for. In my mom’s defense, she told me that being a mom was going to be tough some days. She told me about the sleep I would lose for the next 18 years. She told about the expenses of raising a child. She told me about the late nights being up making bottles for feeding time.

 

She lectured me about everything to prepare me for motherhood but she left out one lesson: Managing Emotions.

 

How was I supposed to know that being a new mom came with so many emotions? Further, how was I supposed to know that my child’s father would be the cause of so many mixed emotions?

 

Here I laid in my bed paralyzed. My emotions had literally suffocated me to the point of breathlessness and I couldn't move let alone speak. My child’s father truly had the audacity to invite not only our mutual male friend to our hospital room, but also two other girls. I didn’t know the girls from a can of paint, but I had seen them on Facebook before. In fact, I had witnessed him and our mutual male friend flirting with these same two girls online - - from liking all of their pictures to leaving flirtatious comments on their Facebook statuses. Maybe he didn’t know I was hip, but I was.  

​

The nerve.

 

The disrespect.

 

After an emergency C-section to deliver our child, after fending for our child overnight on my own, and even after covering up for him, he still had the balls to disrespect me in one of my most fragile states. My mind was spinning, trying to find the rationality in it all.

 

Meisha chill. You’re just being emotional right now baby. It’s the mommy hormones. Breathe in. Breathe out. Maybe he wasn’t really flirting with these girls. You know how you can make a mountain out of a mole hill sometimes girl with your territorial self. I mean it is social media. People communicate on social media and like pictures.  It happens! That doesn’t mean he has any real relations with these girls outside of Facebook… Or maybe he didn’t know these girls were coming to visit, too. There’s a chance that he thought y’alls male friend would show up alone.

 

 Maybe …maybe…maybe…

​

You see, sometimes when the hurt confuses you so bad you try to make sense of it so that it doesn’t sting as much. You say to yourself, “there has to be a reason for this foolishness because there’s NO WAY this person that cares about me and loves me would be so intentionally thoughtless”. ( Side Note: Wrong is wrong, though and once a person shows you their true colors, accept it for what it is. A personal with no moral consciousness can do things to you without thinking twice about your feelings.)

​

So what did I do?

​

A. Did I cuss him out?

 

B. Did I turn up on the girls?

 

C. Did I throw them all out of my room?

 

D. None of the above.

​

The answer is....D.

 

Even though I was near the brink of an eruption with so much fury boiling up on the inside, words struggled to escape my lips. Instead, I began to replay everything in my mind - - all of the instances that he failed to “be there” for me as a boyfriend or even as a dad.

 

Imagine every failure like a piece of tape.

 

He failed to take me to prom – a piece of tape over my mouth.

He failed to go to the mommy classes with me – a piece of tape over my mouth.

He failed to provide emotional support – a piece of tape over my mouth.

He failed to help me financially prepare for baby Santana  - a piece of tape over my mouth

He failed to even stay the night with me in the hospital – a piece of tape over my mouth

And now this…

 

Even though I wanted to verbally release my frustration I was in emotional bondage. God knows I wanted to cry out, but there was too much “tape”. I couldn’t move my lips for what seemed like hours, but in reality may have only been minutes.

 

Finally, I mustered up the few words that I could produce.

 

“I need to talk to you… alone”

 

“Aye, we need to go outside? Y’all good? Mei you know I love you yo. Don’t look like that man. I just wanted to see y’all and the baby.” The male friend proclaimed. Again, I knew this friend personally. Heck even though he was a mutual friend, I knew him first.

 

Damn. Him too.

 

“We good. I’ll see y’all in a second. Just wait for me downstairs,” my child’s father responded.

 

WHAT?! WAIT FOR HIM? Was I hearing this correctly? Did he plan on leaving out again? For God’s sake, the pain from the recovery of my C-section was no longer on my mind. That shit felt like a knee scrape compared to the inner turmoil I was experiencing now.

 

Emotions.

 

​

“Before you get upset… I’m not leaving you all night. I’m only going downstairs to ….”

​