Up all night

I am up tonight emotions reeling.
It was my birthday yesterday, 36 years old. 36 years alive.
Three years of parents, mom and dad, 10 years of multiple dads, moms, ad totally confusion, abandonment, Crude lack of love from my father, wild crazy times with my mom, and an emotional roller coaster ride with my grandmother and her dilemas.
Lots of moving around, losing people , starting over, and culture shock.
In those first years I learned German, I also realized that I was my mom and my mom's mom, and everyone's anchor.
When they wanted me to be, of course.
Then at 16, My 20 years of drug addition, self hate, torture and, blind running began. Frankly it lasted until about 10 months ago.
My mother died two years ago.
Most of the last two years is so terrifying that my mind can hardly wrap itself around it all.
Most importantly that time gave me the final shove toward my need for a reality.
A reality I have been avoiding for the last 33 years.
I have come to realize that all this time, and all the insanity surrounding those years,
came from depths of my own being.
Whatever made me so fearful and sad has suddenly dissipated into nothingness. while A need for truth and Reality has taken its place.
I am now filled with the knowledge that I matter. I am the only one that has the power to "make" or "break" me.
No one else, not a man, woman, drug, attitude, nothing.
There is no escaping me.
not getting beaten, not an overdose, not emotional rape, not physical rape, nothing and no one can can provide that escape.
There is no escaping ME.
That is the reality I've found.
At the end of this all, the only one standing will be me.
I will be the target of anger, hurt , fear, and guilt if I do not make this life worth living.
I have finally come to the realization that it has been me who has made times of my life, or certain situations I have been in, worth living thorough, or worth wanting to die over.
It was never a guy I was with, my mom's selfish insecurities, or my fathers callous neglect.
It wasn't someone else's drug addiction or someone else's fist in my face that brought me down to the floor.
Nope , it was my own misguided, distorted views of reality.
My reality was molded by the way my mind perceived the aches ,pains and devastating circumstances provided by childhood filled with confusion, disappointment, and abandonment.
I was a product of that behavior.
I know now that it takes only me to make my life a good one.
The way to accomplish that is to be real with myself first. To love me first.
to be able to say , ok. I want to live this ,or, I \will not live this.
I have provided myself with that choice now.
I always had that, though I didn't care enough about Romy to initiate it .
I am done living other peoples reality. I will live for my dreams and my well being now.
It has taken me all these years to figure out that the little girl named Romy Verdae Geissler has a voice, a rather important, intelligent, worthy, bold voice at that.
I now know that that loving someone does not ever include treating myself badly, or letting anyone treat me badly either.
And that loving someone doesn't mean putting my own good judgment aside sothat I can live in someone else's misery for them.
No one will ever love me for neglecting myself for their cause.
That only leads to disrespect from them, and self hatred from me.
one of the most ridiculous thoughts I ever remember having was when, at 17 I was living in NYC, while Looking in the mirror one night, I decided that the only way I could get my heroin junky boyfriend to quit using drugs, and me, was to become him.
And I did!
I became a selfless him.
He used me up and my heart still mourns him, it still mourns me, for that matter.

Disillusion and Disappointment come easy in life.
Being real and heathly do as well. If only one stops running blind for a moment to recognize the difference between the two that is.
It has been easy to set myself up for disaster and disappointment, though it takes guts and nerve to care Enough about myself to say, when enough is enough!
Even now, I walk on the razor sharp edge of reason and choice.
I could wake up tomorrow and decide to take the "easy" way, or there again, I could take the "real" road.
I know in my heart, now that at 36 years of age, I am not willing to, and I will not repeat that misery for anyone.
The road to happiness has already been paved with my fear, disillusion, and heartache.
They are all too exhausting to overlook and relive in the name of nothing.
I will walk the rest of my road with dignity and love for myself and others and the reality that this life is really worth loving and living!
So Ham!