DON'T TELL ME HOW I FEEL DAMMIT!!

the other night i decided to stop in and visit an old friend that i'd lost contact with. he worked at pleaser's strip club as a bouncer. things were well and good as we laughed about old times and caught up with one another. we talked about how i, of all people, became a mother and our wild times hanging out all night. he even laughed at me for saying that i was sleepy when it hit 3 a.m., comparing it to how i once drove him to tennesee on a wim and we didn't make it back until 6 a.m. well anyway, we decided to go to waffle house after he got off to discuss our lives even further. and then it started.
we discussed my time with david. i told him that i enjoy pissing off david's baby mama, because she no longer has the power to affect me, but i have so much power to piss her off. after all of the shit she did to me when i tried to be cool with her back in the day, i see no problem with me screwing with her head. my friend goes into this long tirade of how i'm not happy and she controls me, etc. my friend said that i've no longer got the same smile i used to. he claimed that i'm not loving. he said that the smile that was permanently spread across my face a few years ago is gone. i told him that now people have to work for my smile.
i tried to explain to him that no, i'm not the same weak, silly malika that was easily manipulated. before i had my son i gave so much of myself to so many people. i've let people crash on my couch, i've fed people, i've given people money. and in return when i was pregnant, broke and desperate, those same people gave their asses to kiss. so i built a wall. those of yall within my wall get to experience the silly and loving me that has always been there. everyone else can burn in hell. and i'm HAPPY with this progress. for the first time in my life i feel like i'm in control of my surroundings. for the first time in my life i've developed standards. i expect the people around me to be as loyal to me as i am to them. and i don't see a damned thing wrong with that.
so imagine how pissed i was when i explained myself and my "friend" kept twisting my words. i said to him that i'm happy, and he said to me, no you're not. and then i said "why can't you just be happy for me because i'm happy?" he replied with "i believe that you believe you're happy" which was another fucking slap in the face. he even went so far as to say that i'm not loving anymore, to which i took even more offense. i responded that i'm EXTREMELY loving that for the people i love, i'll take a bullet. he told me to make a loving statement. i said "deen is the best thing to ever happen to me" and he responded that wasn't a loving statement and that i should have said that my son is the best thing to ever happen to me. i responded that i tell my son all of the time that he's the most important thing in my world. under pressure i'd said deen since we had been talkin to him all night. the truth of the matter is that deen AND caleb are the center of my universe. my family is my reason for living. not loving, my ass.
i'm 29 years old, for the love of god. no body knows me better than me. there are plenty of people that don't know who and what they want and who and what they are. i'm not one of them. i was so emotionally drained when i left him last night. i was fuming the whole way home. i can't believe that i felt it necessary to defend my feelings. i got my friend's new number but i'm so pissed off after last night, i really don't know if i'm going to call him again. just because i'm not the same happy-go-lucky chick that he met some years ago, doesn't make me a robot. i've evolved. i got my ass kicked my life and i learned how to fight back. i'm happy being me. and anybody that doesn't like or believe my happiness can KICK ROCKS.