You ever have one of those things that you feel bitter about even though years have passed and you know you should have let it go long ago?

My mom has an entire list of those things. There are some subjects we just don't bring up to her...like how my father's siblings wanted him to pay taxes on a farm they all owned and on which he did all the work...that'll get her spitting mad almost instantly, and it happened about 35 years ago.

Turns out I have one of those things too, and I just feel like writing about it. You know...because writing about it will make me feel better. Or because I'm shallow and just can't let it go.

I was with my ex-girlfriend She-Ra for about three years. I loooooved her. We fought all the time, she had a terrible temper, we rarely had sex, but I adored her and would have walked over hot coals if I thought it would have made her happy. So naturally, she left me for another woman.

Oddly, this is not the part I'm bitter about. Really...she did me a favor. I realize that every morning when I wake up beside Jadyn.

When I was with She-Ra, we had a little business together. Basically, I was self-employed doing an art-sign-ish type thing, and she helped me. When we broke up, I continued with my business, but she was essentially out of a job. I tried to continue working with her, but it was ultimately too painful and I had to stop for the sake of my sanity. Thereafter ensued several months of bickering and unhappiness with her threatening to sue to prevent me from plying my trade (something I could do without her but she couldn't do without me), and me giving her money when I could (I did, after all, have Nate to support), and just generally being about as miserable as I'd ever been.

So about nine months after we broke up, Christmas rolled around. By that time, we'd managed to get on more or less civilized speaking terms again. She began campaigning for a cowboy hat. She desperately wanted one and let me know that she didn't think her new girlfriend was going to provide this cowboy hat. She also let me know that she didn't have any money to buy christmas presents for her parents.

So I gave her about a third of my earnings for December (my busiest month), and bought her a very nice black cowboy hat.

She did buy presents for her parents, but also spent a good bit of that money buying presents for the new girlfriend.

This is still not the part about which I am bitter. As it turns out, I've always liked her new girlfriend and begrudge her very little.

She invited me to come to her parent's house so that we could exchange gifts (so that I could give her the cowboy hat). She loved the hat. It looked great on her. Very sexy. And then I opened her gift to me.

And here's the part that still grinds my ass unto this very day: It was a cassette tape. To be exact, it was Cassette 3 of a motown collection. I'd seen that tape and the other dozen or so that were part of the collection in pretty much every gas station I'd stopped in during the previous few months. They weren't free with gasoline purchase or anything, but my guess is that she bought that tape with change from a twenty after she'd filled her tank at the gas station.

So there it is. My ugly underbelly, displayed for anyone cares to view it.

You know what makes me feel really bad about still being bitter about this? We really are good friends now. She-Ra and her girlfriend (who once said I should call her Wiz or Diz or Fiz on my blog) are two of my very best friends. They've supported me through some rough times. And the real irony is that Nate and I have spent a couple of christmases with them, and they couldn't possibly be warmer or more generous.

Which just goes to show...well...something, I guess.