Growing

     I have this friend, let's call her Nadine, since we are in the south and everything.  

     Back in the day she was my enemy.  She made me more paranoid than I already was to begin with.  She would pull people to the side to have these low murmured conversations and this would drive my paranoia straight through the roof.

    I would cuss her out every time I saw her and she'd be so pleasant, smiling and humming like it didn't bother her.

    It's impossible to avoid people you don't like in the streets, you are going to see them, they are going to cross your path, its just the way it is.

    It was constantly a cat fight, me the attacking cat. 

    The first thing she did that pissed me off was crazy and that started the whole thing.  A mutual friend of our's wanted to get us together, because we didn't know one another and he thought she was nice.

    I gave her some dope he had given me and she stood there looking me straight in my eye and turned her hand to the side, so the dope fell all in the carpet.  This set off a rage in me.

    I had on a dress that was her's that she wanted back but she never got that dress back and I never liked her from that point on.

    A year later, when they dropped me at the house in Dahlonegah Georgia, high up on the mountain.  Who do you think the first person I saw was, bent down in the front yard, over a plant?  Yup.  My mortal enemy, Nadine.  Shit!

    She was a different person, like a butterfly floating all over the yard.  

    It really did feel like a nightmare.  I'm supposed to be at this place to meet jesus and get some help.  What the hell?

    What is she doing here?

    We were friends before the end of the day because I can't stand the thought I might have been mean to someone who didn't deserve it, or even if they did, I'm not mean unless provoked.

    She is a prayer warrior and bold as hell with people, just like me, only different.  LOL.  I used to watch her walk up to perfect strangers and talk with them about the lord and offer to pray for them and I wanted that, whatever it was.

    We became best friends during that time, she was calm in a storm for me.  She didn't seem worried about anything.  Me, on the other hand, I was worried about everything, but I did learn to be quiet and just sit still.

    Sitting still was profound for me, I hadn't been still unless passed out or sick, in over a decade.  There was never any silence in my life.

    I had insomnia so bad once, I had to go to the club and lay down in the dressing room to be able to sleep.  I spent so much time homeless and roaming the streets, the only place I was at peace was asleep in a dressing room full of noisy ass women that were drinking and getting louder.  Music pounding throughout the buillding, laughter, lots of happy noises,

    These days I need as much silence as possible, the sound of the aquarium, the traffic going by, all unavoidable.

    Nadine has a son that is gay and she's so steeped in law, she feels he needs to change and there's nothing you can say to change her mind.

    Kind of dumb, but hey whatever.

    I, on the other hand, am a huge fan of alternative lifestyle people and the gay people are my favorite group of all those groups.  They are so sweet and welcoming and they don't care if you aren't gay, they just want to party and have a good time and be in a place where they are accepted.

    Two very different women.

    She seemed to enjoy all the trappings of a street pro, was always buying matching panties and bras, like it was a big deal to her.  Kept relapsing on me once we were home, married a trick, they relapse together for a while and eventually tore their marriage apart and now are no longer even connected as far as I know.

    He was an ass.  He thought he could get at me.  What a shit head.  He couldn't get at me in the streets with money, he damn sure couldn't get at me out of them.  All money ain't good money and I get to choose.

    He would call me every time she ran off on him and that fool thought he could play the other side of the fence with me!  Whatever!  Oh  no you cannot, you are my friend's husband and I didn't know you in the streets either, so take that bullshit somewhere else homeboy.  I got a man and he'd beat your damned head in if he knew you came on to me like this.

    Get somewhere, don't come round here anymore.

    Never saw him again either.

    Bitch please.  

    Nothing about being a pro thrilled me but the money.  Give me my money, please don't talk too much and if you aren't happy, we'll work something out.

    Anyway.

    She went back out for many years, while I stayed with religion and studying and focusing on not going back out.

    She ran all those years from 9 months she could have served standing on her head, only for the charges to run out fourteen years later.  I haven't seen her in all these years, she's in Vegas.

    When I wouldn't hear from her over the years, I knew she was sitting in jail.  She wasn't licensed to work in Vegas and they caught her time and again.

    I kept the same phone number for a lot of years and if it changed I would post it to her in a message on her facebook on or her page where everybody could see it.  Anytime I answered the phone to, "Halleluiah."  I knew she was just fine.  I messaged her for years that way, some times the only person who had posted to her page since the last time I posted.

    I've rescued her a few times, can't miss the blonde hair and she called me once, because of a bunch of drama with the dope boys.

    The last time was the last time.  I told her, you can't be calling me like this, getting me mixed up in drama, this ain't my life anymore.  I've been in the car and they are all smoking and didn't even know who I was until I said something.

    She went back somewhere else and I stayed put.

    I never want to go back.

    I never did go back.

    I went to bed early last night and didn't bother getting up when the phone started ringing.  It was her, telling me she loves me.

    It caused me to think back and then a flash of a slide show of the years, zooming through my memory.

    I grew and moved on, she hasn't yet.  I hope she does, but that's for her to decide.

    She's steeped in law still, when I've moved past it, I moved past everything.

    She watched me read the bible like it was life.  I read it cover to cover 3 times in less than 90 days.  Others would say I was starving to death for the lord, after all these years I needed something to keep me busy and out of the streets.  Religion did just that and when I did go to the streets it was always in love and of service.

    I see her at the beginning of a journey, when that beginning was a lifetime ago for me.  I see her still very much the same, because she went back out and never grew past that moment in time.

    You grow past things, when you're willing to.  If not, you stay stuck and it could be years and years before you come out again.

    I've been out of that life for sixteen years now, I barely remember what it felt like.  I  never want to go back.  

    I'm on a whole other plane today, everything is different. 

    I can't give her what I have, she has to find it on her own.  I  no longer believe in the god she believes in and never will again.

    If that god is so great, how could he let her go out and destroy her life for the next fourteen or fifteen years?  He loves her so much right?