Last night, at like 3am or so, Eric shared a song called No Need in his stories and I keep going back to it and rewatching it while I can. And the thing is that even though he's so sad playing it and the verses are really hard hit home a little too real, there's something in it that I found strangely comforting. Between the guitar part and the repetitiveness of the chorus being just the words "there's no need" it felt almost like a lullaby, like having someone pet my hair and tell me it'll be okay because it doesn't need to be that way for always, it'll all be okay in the end. And I don't know if that's how he meant it, but that's how it hit me. Made me cry, but a good cry. A cathartic cry -- because, as I said before, something in the song and the place he was singing it from felt like having someone stroke my hair tell me it'll be alright. And it was really soothing, even the crying was soothing and healing.

And I think. I maybe ought to consider the fact that I have been habitually and continuously wrong about how much I mean to him. So I should absolutely consider the possibility as very real that hoping I'd watch is what made his intense excited light about going live (which is what made me check my phone so I saw it change right as soon as he started it) that I felt slowly darken into something heavy and bitter and disappointed inside him.  I shouldn't dismiss it so easily as if it weren't even a possibility. Because it might seem improbable to my ego, but it's certainly not impossible. And as atypical as everything about the connection and love between us is, I should absolutely consider that it might be his truth that it's because of me not joining the live that he went from so much light to so hurt across the course of his late night.

Of course it could be someone and something else entirely different with nothing at all to do with me. But I need to at least be open to acknowledging the possibility of my part in it. Because, if I truly want him to have the happiness he seeks and I WANT to see him all alight full of love and hope, then I need to consider my own agency and responsibility if I am any part of his happiness he seeks. I can't just say I want him to be happy but then absolve myself of being any part of his happiness. Not if he needs me as an integral part of it.

Both he and I need to take responsibility acknowledge how the things we do impact the happiness of the other. Because really, I genuinely believe that neither of us want to be a source of hurt and pain to each other. I genuinely want him to have every single bit of the happiness he seeks. And that requires me trying to look at it clearly to acknowledge where I fit into that -- and that I take responsibility for it so I don't hurt him by telling myself that I can't hurt him or that I'm no part of his happiness.

And that means I can't just tell myself or other people that my ego isn't so big as to pretend he wanted me there. Because if he did specifically hope and desire I'd come watch as a means of trying to help make things better remind me of the good there, then I just compound it to make even more hurt by saying I don't believe I could have been a source of his hurt....And I don't want to be guilty of heaping more hurt on him. I know that people will have the capacity to be hurt as deeply as they love, but I'd rather hurt him as little as possible and focus on the love and building that love if there's anything there to build.

That's what I think after some further self-reflection tonight.  That it's not enough to want him to be happy and to want to make his hurting better, but that I need to take the responsibility of realizing I could hurt him so I can work on not being a source of hurts to him. Especially if I'm going to ask him to try not to be a source of hurts to me. That's what I think.