When Love Turns Into a Lifelong Lesson: Let's Spin The Block Ep 7

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Music.

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Hey, what's going on? What's happening with you guys? Happy Friday.

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This is another episode of the Knucklehead Chronicles podcast.

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This is Let's Spin the Block. I'm not sure what episode this is.

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I think it's seven or eight. I'm not sure.

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But I'm going to give you guys a slight recap, and then we're going to get into

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the next chapter of what my horrible lesson-filled life was like.

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So, if you guys listened to the last episode, we were talking about when I went

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to go live with my friend after my separation from Strawberry's second marriage.

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I went to live with my friend.

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That particular situation went nuclear and we're no longer friends, of course.

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I haven't talked to him since. That's been over 15 years ago.

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So, going into the next chapter, I'm going to give you guys a little bit of my mindset.

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At this point in my life, I am just emotionally lost.

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I don't know my head from my ass, to be truthful with you. And it was just a

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terrible type of situation.

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And I couldn't figure out life. I couldn't make a decision.

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And so, it was just crazy. Now, what I will do is give you guys a little bit of backdrop, okay?

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Even though I was dealing with my friend, I still talk to Strawberry every single

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day of the week, every single day we talk.

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Now, I'm not sure if that's something that she wanted to do.

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It could have been a thing of she might have been trying to talk to me to appease

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me and try to calm me down because it was bad.

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It was a really bad type situation.

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But the reason why I continued to keep that communication open with her is because I was begging.

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Yeah, I was begging. Don't let it be my situation to where you're constantly

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having to say, I'm sorry, I know my friend in Louisiana, and she always says,

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why are you always apologizing?

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Because that's just this kind of way, that's the way I was kind of bred,

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right? Because everything was always my fault, right?

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So every day for a year, we communicated one way or the other.

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But it was mostly me just begging to come back home, me begging to fix the issue,

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me begging this and me begging that.

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And what happened was that because of all of the begging that pushed that pushed

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her to kind of, OK, you know, enough, you know.

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Now, at this portion of my life, this portion, I believe you got to buckle up

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with this one, because at this portion of my life, This is where it got tricky for real.

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Like, and this is what I think made me who I am for the most part, okay?

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So, you know, I'm living with my baby mama's compound.

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They have a little compound. I wouldn't call it a compound.

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That sounds so cult-like. They all live together. They all live in the same

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area. The uncle lives in one house.

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Grandma lives in one house. You know, they have an open space.

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And so I was living in the open space, right? I was kind of just living because

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I don't know what I was doing.

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You know, life was jacked. I was technically homeless, you know,

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but they gave me the opportunity to live up under their roof and have someone

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to sleep, things like that.

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So, like I said, me and Strawberry, we were talking every single day of the

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week. Like I said, most of the time, it was just me begging. She was just listening.

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Now, what happened was, like I said, I need you guys to buckle up because it's

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going to get tricky right here.

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Strawberry had moved on, you know, to another situation. She had moved on emotionally

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and physically. She had moved on.

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But I refuse to believe that she had moved on, right? I refuse to believe it.

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So we raised a daughter together who, her daughter, or our daughter,

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our daughter, she just graduated from Northern Illinois.

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She just got her master's degree so she's but I raised her from a baby right and so,

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We came to an agreement one day, just out of the blue, and it kind of shocked

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me because I wouldn't think that she would never, ever agree to anything like that.

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So the agreement was that I would come back to Illinois.

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That's what she was doing at the current time, because when she left me,

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she went back to Illinois.

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And so I begged her, I guess I edged her and then pushed her enough to where

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she was like, okay, just come on, right? And so I ended up going to Illinois.

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This was in 2010, just so you guys understand.

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Kind of got to put a date on this, 2010. This is 15 years ago.

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It doesn't sound like it's been that long, but it has been 15 years ago.

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Now, the agreement was I come spend time with our daughter that we raised together,

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get my shit together, and get the fuck home.

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That was the agreement in her head, right?

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But in my head, my head was, I'm going to get my wife back, right?

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So it was a constant fight.

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You know, it was a constant fight between me and her because I had my,

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and I was bullheaded, you know, I'm an Aries.

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So I'm ramming, I'm bullheaded.

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So I'm going to enforce my will on you, even though you've already said that's

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not what it is. You know what I'm saying?

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I can laugh at it now, but I couldn't laugh at it then. It was crazy.

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So I went back to Illinois in 2010. I'm not going to say it's the worst mistake,

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but it wasn't even a mistake.

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It was just, you know, it's something that I had to go through.

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So I went back to Illinois, and I lived with this woman.

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Now, I want you to know that we were estranged. We didn't sleep in the same

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bed. We didn't sleep in the same bedroom. I didn't close.

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Again, I'm under the impression that I'm going to get my wife back.

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She ain't she ain't have been moved on with nobody she ain't got no boyfriend da da da da,

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Wrong, because she had one of them. Wrong, right?

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And so now this guy that she had moved on to, he was a friend of hers.

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They've been friends for years, and I think she kept him in the friend zone for a minute.

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And then, you know, after I failed as a husband, he kind of came through and

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bailed us out a couple of times with some bills or whatever.

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And so she kind of looked at him a little differently.

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And so when she, when we moved, when she moved back, when she left me and moved

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back to Illinois, she decided to give it a shot, you know. And so they were together.

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Now, me, I'm naive. I don't even think it was naive. I think it was just stupid.

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It was just outright stupid because I knew.

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I knew she had moved on. I knew she was just this guy. But I was just, I was just compelled.

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And I knew that she wasn't, she didn't do me like that. She didn't,

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she wouldn't do that. She loves me. That's my wife.

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You know what I'm saying? That was

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my, she hates that. She listens to this podcast. She's going to cringe.

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But she hated that when, you know, that's my wife.

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But me, she moved on.

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But I didn't want to accept that she had moved on. That's the carcinitary tale

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that's going to be down the road in a little bit.

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It was really bad. So I spent four years in Illinois. I finally left in 2014.

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Enough, enough was enough but just to

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give you a little bit the story while I

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was in Illinois and the reason why it's such a major

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part of what made me because when I tell you that those four years in Illinois

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broke me all the way down like there was no broke me all the way down to the

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lowest denominator okay because I'm fighting my own thoughts,

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I'm fighting And this dude,

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like this dude, we were about to go to blows once.

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It was just really, really crazy.

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And I ignored all of the flags, all of them, because I didn't want to accept.

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So just to give you a couple of examples, it's like, I told you we was estranged.

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So we were sleeping in the same bed or in the same bedroom at all.

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So what she would do is, you know, she would go to work.

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And now when I first got there, I didn't have a child, by the way.

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So it was like, okay, I got to figure it out.

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So she leaves go to work and she would lock her bedroom door like what are you hiding,

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what are you hiding why are you locking your bedroom door like you you know so,

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it wasn't so much as a red flag for her but for me it was it was stay the fuck

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out of my shit you know what I'm saying like I got something you know and I

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didn't like I said I refused to believe that she's with somebody I refused to

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believe it but the signs were there

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you know she would leave and lock her door every time you know he would he would call her,

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in the mornings when he got off work he was third shift he got

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there so he would call her in the morning on the way home he would

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call her at night on the way to work and he would call her three or four times

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during the course of a day right every single day because he because he increased

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his phone calls because he knew i was there right again all these signs you

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know because i was just too naive or too stupid to realize she had moved on faster.

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So

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But I will tell you, when he called, baby, she dropped whatever she was doing.

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If we were in the middle of a conversation and he called, she dropped our conversation.

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We could be in the middle of a heartfelt conversation. And if that phone rang

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and she looked on the call ID and it was his name, baby, it was over.

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And so I fought, that was an emotional battle for me.

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Like, why am I still putting up with this? Like, what's going on with me? Like, am I that stupid?

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And I think at that time in my life, I think I was that stupid.

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But, and then tried to dress up the stupid and justify the stupid as,

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oh, you know, it's just me trying to get my wife back. That's the might, you know.

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That's bullshit. It was all bullshit. I was selfish, and I wanted what I wanted, right?

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And that's the thing we had to come to the realization. But at the time,

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I couldn't come to that realization because I was too busy in my own delusion,

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right? I was too busy in my own delusion.

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And so it was just really, really stupid. And I'm going to tell you,

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those four years in Illinois with Strawberry was hard.

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Now, I'm going to tell you, and this is how far I went with this,

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because I believed in my heart that I was going to get her back.

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I believed it. You couldn't tell me. You couldn't afford me to believe it.

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None of that. I just knew, I was working two jobs supporting or doing the best

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I could, you know, to support two full-time jobs too, not just,

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you know, not just two part-time.

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I worked an eight-hour job at night as a security guard.

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And then I worked at Walmart in the mornings. So I would get up on a third-step

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job and I would go to Walmart in the morning.

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And I was working two jobs faithfully just trying to, because I wanted to show

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her, look, I've changed. I've done this and I've done that.

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It was all a facade. It was all a facade. At that point in my life, it was all a facade.

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And I paid for it. I paid for it. The heartbreak was crazy.

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Like I said in the beginning, I didn't know.

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I saw the signs. I saw the pictures. I saw the pictures.

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I read the letters, you know, from him to her. I mean, I saw this,

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and I still would not believe that.

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I still didn't believe that they were together.

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And so I was like, okay, well, I can't do this no more.

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So one day in 2014, four years later, two jobs down, me begging for three and

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a half years to be back with this woman.

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I woke up one morning and I said, you know what? I cannot anymore.

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I cannot. She wants what she wants. She loves who she loves and it ain't me.

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You know, and it's hard. It was hard. It was a hard decision to come to because

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a lot of things happened in those four years.

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You know, a relationship between me and her was strained.

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The relationship between my daughter and I was strained.

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I think I hurt that. I hurt that relationship more than anything because,

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like I said in the beginning, the premise was for me to come up and be and spend

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time with her and be with her, be her father, get my shit together and get out.

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Right. That was the premise.

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But I didn't do that. I was so overcome with getting my wife back that I forgot what the premise was.

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And, you know, it caused her trauma. There was a situation to where she graduated

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from junior high, and I was told that the boyfriend wasn't coming.

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And the next thing I know, he shows up, you know, at the graduation,

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which trained us, which pissed me off to no end. because I thought you said,

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you told me that he wasn't coming.

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Y'all know, y'all know I want this guy. You know, but,

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At some point, you have to come to a realization. At some point,

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you got to say, okay, now it's enough.

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And so, begrudgingly, I said, okay, this is in 2014. I was like,

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I can't do this no more. I'm so done.

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And one morning I woke up, I bought me a plane ticket.

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And I got paid. I got bought me a plane ticket. I quit my jobs,

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bought my plane ticket. I went back home.

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Before I left, she had took her oldest daughter to the train.

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So I was there by myself and I left a note on her pillow and I was like, I can't.

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I realized that I'm not that guy.

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That was painful. That was really painful.

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And I left and got in a taxi. I got out of the plane and went back to North Carolina, right?

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And that ended my four years of torture in Valentine. Like I said,

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it wasn't really torture.

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It was self-inflicted. there's a 750 gunshot one.

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Self-inflicted man I did that and there were so many stories within those four

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years that I'm not going to get into on this podcast but just know that,

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everything that glitters and go just because you want it don't mean you're going

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to get it right listen to the other person you know be mindful of what you are doing,

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do not set yourself up for emotional failure and that's exactly what I did I

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set myself up for any emotional failure and I feel miserably and I paid for

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it for years after that you know I entered into,

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a new relationship that's in the next episode though,

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Because she was looting tunes. I thought she wasn't like Shirley, though.

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But she looting tunes. Anyway, so the cautionary tale here is this.

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If you have the opportunity to right or wrong, do it before it's too late.

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What you can't do is keep making bad choices and bad decisions and think that

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it's just going to slide over.

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It's just going to go over with time. It's not. It's not.

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You cause trauma to people and, you know, you cause trauma and you just can't, you just cannot.

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If you have the opportunity to write it, write it. If you have the opportunity to fix it, fix it.

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Be true to yourself and be true to the people you're dealing with.

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Listen, that's the number one thing, man. If I can't tell you nothing else,

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man, listen to the other person.

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Because if they tell you they ain't happy, then they ain't happy.

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Don't take your delusion and try to imply it on them because it's not,

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their delusion is yours.

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Right? It's your delusion, not theirs. If they tell you, look,

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I'm not happy, I don't want this, I moved on, I'm in love with somebody else,

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or whatever they tell you, listen to them.

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Listen to them because you can't, what you gonna do?

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One of the, and I talked to Strawberry just the other day And one of the lines

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that she said to me, and it's still true today,

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she said to me when she was talking in relation to her boyfriend at the time,

00:17:59.610 --> 00:18:05.410
she would say, you know, I'm going to love him until my heart stops loving him.

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Listen, women don't say shit like that just to be saying shit like that. They mean that.

00:18:13.050 --> 00:18:16.990
If you say, I'm not going to stop loving him until my heart stops loving him.

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And that thing sticks in the back of my craw, in the back of my brain.

00:18:21.530 --> 00:18:23.850
And anytime we have a conversation, because she's still my friend,

00:18:24.930 --> 00:18:28.590
and anytime we have a conversation, it's like that sticks in the back.

00:18:28.970 --> 00:18:32.330
But I tell you what, when we have a conversation, we listen. I listen.

00:18:33.070 --> 00:18:34.690
We listen and we don't.

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We listen and we don't judge. Listen, man, if you guys enjoyed the podcast,

00:18:40.750 --> 00:18:44.950
listen, please subscribe to the podcast. Share the podcast. That's most important.

00:18:45.330 --> 00:18:48.970
Share the podcast. If you have any questions or any topics you want me to talk

00:18:48.970 --> 00:18:53.550
about on the podcast, reach me at knuckleheadchroniclespodcast at gmail.com.

00:18:53.750 --> 00:18:56.390
You can listen on Spotify, YouTube, and Facebook.

00:18:56.790 --> 00:18:58.390
Check me out next episode.

00:18:58.850 --> 00:19:01.790
Cancer Update is on next Friday. I did one this morning on Facebook.

00:19:01.950 --> 00:19:06.330
So if you missed that, go to my Facebook page to check out the Cancer Update

00:19:06.330 --> 00:19:10.790
episode or actually round 10, which I'll be going to Wednesday.

00:19:11.110 --> 00:19:14.490
But until next time, you guys have a great and wonderful rest of your day.

00:19:15.090 --> 00:19:17.910
I love y'all. and I will see y'all down the line.

00:19:19.120 --> 00:19:53.540
Music.