Madea Goes to Jail2006

Sonny:
[in a funk after Vanessa left him] I just don't... What am I supposed to do now?

Madea:
You got to go on with your life. It's all right to sit around and be depressed for a minute, cry about it, do whatever you have to but don't stay there too long. Get up and go on with your life. You know what? This is what I learned in all these years on this earth. If somebody want to walk out of your life, LET THEM GO. Especially if you know that you done everything you can do. You done sat around and been the best man or the best woman you can be and they still want to go, let them go. Whatever they're running after, they'll see what they had in a minute, but by then it's gonna be too late. 'Cuz you'll sit there and you'll go... Because half of these people, you be sitting around crying about it, worrying about it and then two or three years from now you ain't even gonna remember their last name. How many times you done see folks somewhere and you be like 'What the hell was I thinking? I done been there, I was like what was wrong with me? What was I going through? I must have been lonely as hell to hook up with you'. Let folks go, Sonny. Some people'll come in your life for a lifetime, and some'll come for a season. You got to know which is which. And you're gonna always mess up when you mix those seasonal people up with lifetime expectations. They got people that got married to people they was only supposed to be with for a season and they wonder why they're having so much hell in their life. That was the person that was supposed to come and teach you one thing. You didn't know it so you just fell in love and now you wonder why you don't have no peace anywhere you go. No, noooo! Listen, I put everybody that come in my life in the category of a tree. Some people are like leaves on a tree. If the wind blows, they're over here, they're unstable. Blow the other way, they're over here. if seasons change, they wither and die, they're gone. But that's alright, that's some people. Most people in the world are like that. They're just there to take from the tree, they ain't there to do nothing but take and give shade every now and then. That's all they can do. But don't get mad at people like that, that's who they are. They ain't never gonna be nothing, that's what they put on this earth for, to be what they are: A LEAF. Some people are like a branch on that tree. You gotta be careful with them branches too because they'll fool you. They'll get there and make you think that they're a good friend and they're real strong. But the minute you step out there on them, they'll break and they'll leave you high and dry. But if you find two or three people in your life that's like the roots at the bottom of that tree, you are blessed because they're the kind of people who ain't going nowhere. They ain't worried about being seen, don't nobody have to know that they know you, they ain't got to know what they're doing for you. But if those roots weren't there, that tree couldn't live, you understand? A tree can have a hundred million branches but only a few roots down at the bottom to make sure it gets everything they need. I'm telling you, Sonny, when you get you some roots, you better hold on to them because the rest of them, you let them go. Let folks go!

Sonny:
Aunt Madea, it's not always that easy.

Madea:
Ain't nobody said it was gonna be easy, but it will get easy when you learn how to love yourself. When you get to a point in your life where you look at people and you go 'Okay wait a minute. You or me?', you will make a decision. When you telling folks to do something... Now I've never thrown nobody away, I've never in my life just thrown anybody away saying 'Don't bother me no more, don't talk to me no more', I've never done that. What I DO is tell them, 'Look, this thing you doing right here is gonna cause a problem. You need to fix that because if we're gonna be friends and gonna be cool, you need to fix that. And if you don't, we're gonna have an issue'. If you see somebody fix it or even trying to fix it, that's somebody that cares. Keep those people around, that's a leaf that's trying to grow up and be something else. But if you tell somebody 'What you're doing is hurting me and I need you to stop' and they keep doing it, they don't care. Move on, let them go! No matter how much it hurts, let them go. And it'll get easier, I promise you. Every day, it'll get easier and easier and easier, you just have to make it through. You hear me, Sonny?

Sonny:
Yeah.

Madea:
You see, some people just gotta learn to be by themselves. People have to learn how to be alone. I don't understand all these people crying about 'I need somebody. Lord, where is my man, Lord where is my woman'. That is crazy as hell! If you don't know how to be by yourself, what you gonna do with somebody else? Stop praying about it! SHUT UP AND WAIT! Go work on YOU! Hell, that's what that time is for, to get YOURSELF together! I'd rather be in a corner by myself with a puppy and a goldfish and be happy than to be sitting around with somebody in my house and wondering what the hell they there for. You will be surprised with the things that people put up with just to have somebody say that they love them. I don't understand that! I can't live in dysfunction, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I done been through too much hell and high water to come there and let you come up in my adult life where I'm supposed to be at peace and give me all sorts of hell. There's only two places on earth that you're gonna have peace: the grave and your house. If you can't walk up in your house and you ain't got no peace, then something's wrong. I'm sorry. People be rebuking Satan, I'll be rebuking Satan and beating the hell out of everything that's up in there until they get out. 'I'm sorry, you gots to go. This is mine'. You hear me, Sonny?

Sonny:
Yeah, I hear you, Madea.

Madea:
You better hear me, That's for sure!