Keeping it "Real"

I've always been a realist.....to a fault much of the time, but I rarely see the world with rose colored glasses. I think this way of viewing the world started many years ago....probably the day my sister died.....but more than likely, even before that.

I had to keep it real. My parents didn't exactly provide the most peaceful home.....it wasn't really their fault, they just didn't like each other. Married young....all that. But it was more than that. I saw things for exactly as they were....real. I had a great imagination....but I seemed to want to play "real life" instead of make believe. I remember once I was playing house with another little girl and I began to yell at her that she was naughty and I hated her....WTF? Where did that come from? Gee, I wonder.

It wasn't until after Betsy died (my baby sister at the age of 16) that I began to really see where I fit into the scheme of things.....my dad loved me unconditionally, and I just didn't realize that the "unreal-ness" of my mother's affections-or lack there of-was the "real" reality.

She'd carried discord for me my entire life. Up to that point, I think my dad's love had surrounded me with a sort of anti-Mom bubble and I didn't see or really pay much attention to it. Then she got sick...frail, and angry. That's when I knew.

Having the opportunity to ask this woman who gave me life "why didn't you love me?" was a rare and life changing moment. You're thinking she's going to give the old standard "mother" answer, right? Hate to disappoint you, but she didn't. For she had this, my undivided attention, to really lay it out there....and she did. This woman who had taken care of me but took every opportunity to inflict pain or sorrow me.....told me in no uncertain terms that "her" daughter had died, and my deceased father's daughter lived on. Reality. A hard smack in the face.....but a relief.

For after Betsy's death, the burning question was "why doesn't she cherish the fact I am still here?" And right there, in that moment, I got the answer. Instead of breaking my heart, it freed the anger and self-loathing I'd felt for 20+ years. For if I had died, then Betsy would have lived...and my mother would be happy. In that instant, I knew I'd had a bigger purpose in life than to make this sickly, angry, and hateful woman happy.

I had learned the truth or reality as I refer to it now. It all melted away....all the hatred, hurt and unknowings....just fell away and I was free. Truly the "truth set me free." And I was free to be me.....to life in the moment.....and be REAL. What she'd inflicted on me for so long.....wasn't real afterall. It was a figment of HER imagination or a hard, bumpy, uncomfortable mattress in the corners of her own made up world. I wasn't a pain in her anything any more.

So since then, now some 5 years ago since her passing, I have done nothing be be honest. Every day....keeping it real. I don't lie, tell people half-truths or make excuses. It's a rough road I tell you, but I'll never not be true to myself again....nor will I deprive the world of my thoughts, or those uncomfortable truths. She freed me from the world of hatred and lies......it was amazing.

I can handle the truth. It's always a bitter pill to swallow, but I can handle it. Just don't lie to me. However.....in the recent past someone felt it necessary to hit me over the head with her truth, or her view of my world as she saw it. It came at a time when I was nowhere near emotionally fit to handle such a heavey load of truth. And in her need to be "honest" with me....she crushed the trust and faith I had in her love for me. While in her "I'm telling you this because I care" speech, I saw judgment and jealousy. I didn't really see her true intent. Should I just have simply taken it for what it was.....instead of allowing it to crush the idea I had of our relationship? Probably not, but as somebody who should have known how down, out and at the lowest possible point of my life.....I couldn't handle her view of my reality. I was barely hanging on to my own.

Today the reality of that is we don't speak anymore. I wrote her a long "this is how I see things" letter and that was it. She wanted so badly for me to see her view of my reality, that it created a tornado of I can't trust you because you kicked me while I was laying on the floor crying my eyes out because I was living in a friend's basement and missing my husband so badly it hurt moment......when the winds calmed, I saw it for what it REALLY was.....reality. Ain't life funny?

It wasn't what she said...for it was what "she" believed to be true....I respected that. But....it was the "when" that I cling to in my own self preservation. Hell...as I lay bleeding, she just poored a big ol' bottle of rubbing alcohol on my wound. OUCH!! Not what I needed.....and the resentment remains.

I am so well equiped to forgive....I've forgiven my mother for hating me (or whatever non-motherly emotion that was), I've forgiven my husband for having an affair before our first annivesary, I've laid to rest the resentment I had for the person that mudered my sister.....I'm full of forgiveness. But the plain old reality of it is I'm tired of people crapping all over my world and not seeing that my keeping it "real" is how I've survivied all the pain that preceeded the forgiveness.

I'm sure that at some point, I'll forgive her....and be able to just move forward and see what happens. But right now I'm stuck so deep in her pile of honesty, that I can't see anythings.

I keep it real....I see the world for just what it is.....people for who they are.....situations for the lessons we're supposed to receive.....and the honest to God love the people in my inner circle shower on me. REALLY I do.

I guess I should thank all that negativty for making me the bitch I am today.....I'm strong and capable. But when I'm all alone and it's quiet.....reality is a cold slap in the face. I've been through enough in the last year to be reminded of all the shortcomings my life (and mostly in the recent past) has truly had....instead, a boost would be nice.

For the first time in gosh-I don't know when-my reality doesn't sting or keep me awake at night. So I have to give a big fist pump to all those who have stuck by me....good and bad.....happy or sad......lying cheating husband or loving man of my heart......basement dweller or new tenant in a homey "home"......thank you man.....I couldn't do it without you.....