But anyways, three more years down the road my ex was with a different woman, and I had already moved back after Florida. So three years later I’ve been back living in Ohio, and I was temporarily staying with my ex and his girlfriend and my little boy who lived with my ex. I’m staying with them because I was in financial difficult situation and I stayed there till I got back on my feet with a job. Me and my boy was staying in the same room. My ex and his old lady were there doing their thing and I was there for only a short time trying to get on my feet. I really couldn’t handle being there. I didn’t stay there that long, I just stayed there long enough to get my shit together and go.
And so my ex and his girlfriend get in a big feud and the law is called – domestic violence. I’m sitting there in the living room while them two is fighting like cats and dogs and there’s a knock at the door. I answered the door and it was Jim Ashley. When I seen Jim Ashley all these memories came back to me. Same town, same faces, same place, same things going on only my ex is with someone else, and this is all too much déjà vu for me.
And then I was thinking, “I have that watch and I’ve had it for all this time.” And I think “You know what, the more things change the more they don’t.” So I thought, “I’m gonna give him back that watch.” Because I was carrying it around all this time thinking of a way to get him back. So when he come to the door, I had changed, but the situation that I was in hadn’t changed, except I wasn’t the one getting hit and smacked.
And Jim Ashley showed up the door and he’s making his report and I go in the bedroom and come back and say hey “Jim, I want to give you this watch.” And I’m thinking, “I’m at peace with it now. I’m not wantin’ to get this guy in trouble anymore because I don’t care anymore. I’ve moved on with my life. And what he did to me I can change, but I can change by giving him that watch back showing him that I changed.”
And he looks at the watch, and he saw my hair tangled in the watch. When we got in the fight it must of got caught in my hair and that must of been what pulled it off his wrist.
And he says, “Thanks, my kids gave me that watch.”
And I said, “member how you lost that watch?”
And he said, “Yeah.” and that was it.
It didn’t mean nothing to him though. I don’t think it meant to him what it meant to me. What it meant to me was I’m done hating you. You don’t care, and the only one I’m hurting is me. I wasn’t hurting him I was hurting me. So when the whole situation embraced me, I give him that watch back. I don’t think I seen him after that; that was last time I seen him. I’m not in that state anymore mentally or physically.
(Next week; The Moral)