For those who were wondering, there was nothing anomalous or concerning in my glaucoma exam today - my field of vision test was solid, my pressures were low enough to not be of any concern,  and my optic nerve looks healthy and good.  I am heading back in a couple weeks to take a more detailed image of my optic nerve and to measure the corneal thickness.  But really this is an excess of caution because of 1) family history of glaucoma from my paternal grandma's side and 2) the thinness of some regions of my cornea which could just be the shape of my eye as is common with people with myopia as bad as mine. It's not an active concern nor are there any signs of it at this time,  just trying to get baselines for IF I develop glaucoma in another 20-30 years or so.   It won't hurt me to be monitoring it or to have the data/images starting at such a young age - but right now there's no active concern that I have glaucoma or am showing signs of developing it.  Just an excess of caution so if I ever do it will be caught as early as possible. 

Also.  I don't mind extra eye appointments covered by insurance because at Brandon Eyes I get free Haagen-Dasz (sp?) ice cream every time I go next door.  And I mean, what's the momentary discomfort of staring one-eyed into a white light and having to press a button every time you see squiggles for five minutes followed by staring at a green x to get paparazzi flash blinded you can't blink during then do it all on the other eye when you know there's dulce de leche and coffee ice cream afterward? I mean,  there's a lot more physical discomfort than getting a vision checkup and staring into bright lights that I'd do for the promise of free ice cream.... 

In other recent news, I'm actually enjoying the Tarzan books much more than the Barsoom books.  There's still a lot of treating women as objects of desire and/or plot devices rather than individualized characters, but it's not as prevalent an issue thus far in these Burroughs books.  

Also.  I was thinking about it the other night.   And there is no time in this life or any I can remember when the bond between our souls has been at full strength that I ever doubt it. It's simply  constant knowing in me, like faith in the sun rising and the cycle of the seasons. It's only when one of us makes choices that weaken or poison or shut out the connection or one of us feels tempted to look elsewhere that the doubts and second guessing creep in.  But it never happens when one or the other or both of us have full faith in the inner connection and believe that somehow, across any difficulties or distance, we can and will find each other again. Like we both have something magnetic in us that pulls and yearns for the other and always finds its true north again as soon as whatever was shifting the needle from true is removed. When he is unwaveringly certain, then inside me there's no second guessing the connection or his desires. There's only certainty and inevitability and the pull of fate. It's an intuitive knowing. 

And everything that pulls us away from each other comes from other people or from over-thinking and fear every time. Sometimes it's about getting ahead of the hurt by accepting it before it happens, but it's still the fear that started it. 

And intuitive knowings are the crystal clear certainties that you can't prove but you do know whereas anxieties are a bit frantic all over the place built on what ifs.  If I keep hauling myself back to asking,  "is this an inner certainty or a what if questioning?" then I keep a more even keel instead of rocking the boat for no damn reason.  

I think where I tend to run afoul (other than my unbending ethics if you cross questions of justice,  of right and wrong, which is just a part of my character everyone can run up against) is that I don't love living beings in a possessive way so I don't grasp tightly to what I desire to hold onto it. Even when maybe I should.  If I feel even the faintest flutter or flicker of a desire for freedom or something else, my instinct says to open my hand let go instead of clenching down harder. Because trying to hold on to a living being that wants to be free of you causes them distress and pain - so the only reason to do it is like to brush or groom or medicate or trim nails where you have to cause momentary distress to do them a long-term good.   So even if that fluttering only exists in my head over-thinking and imagining there's a desire for "something else" whenever I feel it I try to give the space to allow free will to choose someone/something else if that's what's wanted...  It's not that there's any diminishing of my desires when I try to let go, it's that my desire for the other to be happy is stronger than my desire to keep them or for me to get my own selfish way.  I'd rather know someone I love is happy pursuing their truest desires than try to force or guilt them to stay attached to me.  

There's just a faulty premise that gets me into illogical self-sabotaging when I assume Eric's happiness or desires are something that he can only find by me letting him go removing me from his options....  And I recognize that. It's a fear of doing him harm based premise,  not one with roots or evidence.   but also, when the overthinking and doubts and self-martyring sets in it's very hard for me to recognize those assumptions for a false premise that leads to self-sabotaging with really no reason or foundation other than the "what ifs" of anxiety suggesting he wants something I'm no part of for the happiness he seeks.  

But it's always anxieties and good intentions and an over-abundance of respect for the sanctity of free will at the root of it.  Never is it coming from a place of intuition. My higher self knows beyond a shadow of any doubt what it desires and that it's reciprocated and that the only path to true healing is together.  I just sometimes fall away from my higher self's knowing and get lost in trying to do the right thing through a maze of what ifs and the assumptions they generate... 

I need more data,  or maybe just better data, in the dataset to correct this.  So I can just shut down the what ifs as anomalous don't fit any of the data I have BEFORE they spend so much time in my head I start considering letting go or sacrificing my own desires or any other self-sabotaging that comes from a desire for him to be happy without knowing what he wants/needs for that.