The answer to my questions from earlier tonight is nearly three years. Nearly three years since the last time Eric's band (which is the center of his life, not just his family and closest friends, but it is his life at this point -- I don't think even he knows who he is without the band) did anything that brought me joy with no strings attached of pain or disgust.

The last time was their holiday acoustic tour they did with Penny & Sparrow. Before they announced "we're a country band now." Since signing to Valory and trying to fit in with the country music scene and seeking fame/fortune via country radio, there isn't ANYTHING they have done as a band or he has done as an individual that has brought me unalloyed joy. Most of the joys they have brought me, few and far between as those have been, were in trying to fix fuckups they made/did by their career choices and by what has happened during the Big Machine era of Delta Rae and the Jessie Roesch era of Delta Rae.

Three years is a long time.

I was excited about them going independent, hopeful that it meant they were done selling out. That was before all of the pandering to the Swifties they did which destroyed most of my excitement and support for their new chapter I'd felt up until that choice they made.  Eric's choice to go live on the band instagram and ignore me about the problems of that and why it was unfair happened well after I had lost my excitement and desire for anything the band was promising about this new chapter of them as an independent band or the albums they'd make with the Kickstarter money. They'd already shown me nothing had changed in them and what they were going to continue to try to fit in country music and they were still willing to sell out just about anything to get ahead. All that had changed was that the label booted them for the ways they could never fit in at country radio.

So three years since the band and Eric himself have done anything that brought me joy and only joy without first causing me pain/disgust or subsequently causing me pain/disgust by the direction they take the good start they had. And nearly a year since Britt's choices in the name of the band created a situation where the pain FAR outweighs any joy, where I can't even find joy in listening to the songs that had been a constant soundtrack in my life from the time I discovered them up until Britt did that. The truth is that even all the physical pain that the country music caused me due to my synesthesia,  the joy of everything that came before still far outweighed it up until a year ago when Brittany made her choice in free will and in the name of the entire band to block me for being honest that the decision to go country caused me enough pain at shows that I would not go to any more shows so long as country music was any part of it.  That choice and that action of Brittany is what tipped the balance so pain would outweigh joy and I'd not even be able to listen to my much beloved tracks from Carry the Fire,  Chasing Twisters EP,  After It All, and live tracks I ripped off fan youtube videos.

It's been one year since there was MORE hurt than all the joy they brought me - but it's been nearly three years since they brought me unalloyed joy with no hurt attached to it.  Three very long years.

So I must ask myself again, "Why did I expect anything else of Eric given how thoroughly he has let the peer pressure from this scene consume him? This is simply who he is now, who he has made himself into to try to fit in with Jessie and Britt and the people he and the band have surrounded themselves with over the last three years."

I shouldn't expect anything better of him, this is simply who he is now. And I need to recognize that truth. I should be making my own choices and decisions under that aegis.

That has nothing to do with him being sick or not being sick recently -- it's simply who he is now. Who he chooses to be and who he wants to be. And it is based on who he is and the sort of man he aspires to be that I should be making my choices. Not the man he was or could have been or I want him to be. But the man he is and the man he chooses to let himself be.  And I have three years now of data on that on which to base my own actions and choices.

And the fact it's been three years since he brought into my life any joys untainted by hurting me is the real reason I need to call it.  I'm sure that whatever their plans for The Light and The Dark,  it still is centered in this grafted on country scene bullshit of the last three years.  And anything with anything to do with country music will only ever cause me pain and evoke disgust in me. So I don't even need to hear it to know it can't possibly bring me unalloyed joy as the band I used to love did before they attempted to fit in and have anything to do with the country music scene.  That band is dead,  and it's time I accepted that and made my peace with it,  and stopped mourning for my loss over what happened to the band I had loved so terribly much.