http://ping.fm/MiCCl

I will Suceed

I am going to take the yoga teacher training in January for sure.
I will suceed through God's will and the strength and intelegence
that he gave me!
Romy the yogic

Ray Charles............

One summer evening some friends and I went to Piedmont park in Atlanta Georgia to "see" Ray Charles and to hear him perform.
There were so many people, and it was so crowded that people were raising all kinds of hell. They were yelling over the music for others to sit down because they couldn't see Ray Charles playing the piano.
This totally infuriated me!
I was 20 years old and ready to stand up for ol' Ray Charles up there, even though he was well equipped to take up for himself!
He stopped mid-song because of all the commotion. When he did, I screamed at the top of my voice; "why don't ya'll all just sit down, Shut Up and LISTEN to him?!" He can't SEE any of you, DO ya'll think THAT stops HIM from making beautiful music for us?"
The crowd was totally quiet!
Everyone EXCEPT Ray Charles, that is!
He let out a great big smile and said ;"Right on Baby........Not seein' never stopped MY show!"
At that moment I felt such pride, embarrassment, and joy that I could not do anything but stand there and be mesmerized by Ray Charles, the man.... His music... And his words......
Here it is 16 years later.
After watching his movie. I have learned something new about myself through Mr.Ray Charles once more.
I am like the man, not the legend, in that I too was born with many disabilities. I was not even expected to live through birth, now after cheating death six times, I finally realize that through my mother's guidance and the will that she instilled in me, I did live! And what a life it has been!
Only now though, that my mom is gone from here, do I realize that while trying so hard to hide my pain, to overcome obstacles, and become more than she imagined, I crippled myself.
I crippled myself just as Mr. Ray Charles did, in order to hide his guilt for something thing that he had no control over during his childhood.
We went down the very same road....
Medicating the pain of life through heroin addiction and self destruction.
Oh how nice it feels to sit next to myself and see that little girl who did not know anything else to do........
It feels good to understand. And to forgive........
I love you Mama.

New Friends

I am waiting on pins and needles to hear from my new friend whom I met at Omega.
She is an English teacher at a Virginia College.
If you read this again, will you please leave a comment?
I would really enjoy meeting you again.

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!

Rambolina is...........

Rambolina is the driving force within. She lives in that place deep in the spirit of me is the driving force that has kept me alive, with conscience, and with love, and with the understanding I have only recently begun to develop inside myself. I am developing an understanding that I am not made only of myself,but I am of him, and of you, and of them, and of all the bits of life that have been accumulating inside this soul and body through years of bewilderment, abandonment, and a life led astray.
she is, and always has been the driving force behind my very survival.
my objective in writing of her is to reach within, to come to terms with, and to share the hardships and happiness that this life has brought me. As well as to give testimony of the blessings I've received, while God in all his glory,has tried in every way known to him, to bring me out of the torment and tears I've relentlessly inflicted upon myself ever since the very first breath granted to me. In saying those words "the first breath granted to me", I am only now, I mean right now, with the very next breath I take, realizing and appreciating that I have so selfishly taken each of those breaths for granted in a way that no one could ever imagine. Stolen by me like a thief in the night, like stealing a child sleeping safe in its bed. Stolen from me, by me. Gone are those breathes , never to be recovered, wasted away, in a mad dash. Running as fast as I could. Through a life spared so many times. Why? I ask. Why am I running? I'm passing it by, this life of mine. I'm passing it by while running......running as fast as I can.
Stop! I say. It is time to breath normal. It is time to give thanks,to give thanks to life, thanks to death, thanks to good, thanks to evil. Its just time for thanks to God, to life and for having been given the chance to finally live it. To cherish it. And it is time to appreciate the gifts of life that have been so graciously laid at my feet like jewels before a princess in some fairy kingdom. In my life I ve not been lavished with jewels of men, though I have been lavished by the jewels of god.
for I have learned, if nothing else, that life is a mere jewel. Its' magnificence depends on not only on the crafters art, but on the contents of the gem with which he is working .the lesson of life is as hard or as easy as one makes it.

Rambolina lives in a place...

She lives in a place inside the scared, brave, grateful mind and in the heart, of a girl who has lived through just about every crazy situation imaginable. from being born pretty much dead.... to being a herion addict with a death wish... to becoming a recovering addict that was hit by a freight train....then learning the fragility of life. and the consequence of recless abandonment of ones self. She has really lived.Now she lives with the pain.