There's a difference between intellectual honesty and emotional honesty.  And while I'm quite rigorous and blunt about intellectual honesty, I'm realizing that I'm not particularly good at emotional honesty. 

I tend to treat my emotions (other than joy and curiosity and wonder and inner peace, all of which are my baseline emotions for 90% of my time in this life) as being nuisances or something subject to force of will.  Either the intellect controls them or they control you.  They're not to be experienced so much as dealt with to tidy them up.  But not all emotions can just be tidied up and put on a shelf.... They're still there inside you,  even if you refuse to acknowledge them or look at them. 

I think.... The only time I'm emotionally honest with myself is when I admit how deeply I want Eric and want him integrally part of my life - and how I've wanted that all my life since long before I had a name to go with the energy signature or the face in my dreams/visions/past life memories.  I'm only emotionally honest when I admit that I want to wrap my arms around him and watch him light up when he sees me and every time I fall asleep or wake up, there's a disappointment in me that he's not there. A specific lonesomeness for the lack of him,  not a general emptiness for a loneliness of any body.  

And.  I think.  I'm only being emotionally honest when I admit that I pull away or try to rationalize denying myself what I want out of hurt or a fear of his rejection (which is just a fear of deeper hurt.)  I pull away to protect myself from the hurt if or when he were to decide he doesn't care about hurting me or I'm not what he wants, that the love and desire I feel so intensely runs one way not both ways.  But intellectualizing acceptance of rejection by reminding myself of the importance of respecting free will doesn't actually heal any hurts or even heal the fear of that hurt.  What it does do,  however, in pushing him away in preparation for my hurt if/when he might reject me, is to make him feel the very hurt that I'm feeling or that I'm scared of feeling. And I don't want that.  I don't want to be a source of pain in his life... Especially not a soul deep hurt.  It doesn't help my hurting to try to prepare myself in case it happens - it just perpetuates and elongates the fear of the hurt of rejection in both of us.  It's like a little kid so afraid at how much taking off a band-aid will hurt that they cause themself far more anguish than if they just have someone rip it off to check on the wound and care for it to heal it.  Only,  in this analogy,  I'm putting band-aids on where there's no wounds, for fear of potential future wounds and the hurt that will come of tearing off band-aids as those potential future wounds heal.  

And that's really fucking stupid.  I'm sorry,  but it is.  

And. I think.  The only way to actually neutralize the pain of rejection or the pain of potential rejection isn't in trying to prepare by slapping on band-aids where there are not currently wounds but there could be - it's being brave enough to look at it and recognize the potential for injury and to say,  "how do we avoid getting hurt in the first place?" And. the answer I have when I'm being emotionally honest is that we avoid it by being honest and vulnerable that there IS that potential for being hurt because there's ALWAYS the possibility of hurting as deeply as you love if you lose that love - but in acknowledging that, trusting that the other person doesn't want to hurt you, would only do so by accident if at all.  

And building that trust means...  It means me accepting that his rejection would hurt me and staying in whatever is happening  anyway rather than trying to get ahead of that potential for hurt.  Because me trying to shut him out from reaching me or push him away for him to look elsewhere is me projecting my fear of the potential hurt in him rejecting my love and being guilty of inflicting that hurt on him by rejecting his love. That hurt,  that potential for hurt, only gets neutralized if/when we are both of us brave enough to accept the other's love without holding back our own for fear ours might be rejected.  

I think that's the center of my place of emotional honesty.  Not trying to deny my own desires and not trying to prepare myself for the possibility he doesn't have that same desire for me.  It's the place where we both acknowledge that we could hurt each other deeply by not reciprocating, by having our love rejected - but that we choose to stay and give that desire and love to the other person in spite of the potential hurt from having our love rejected, unreciprocated.  

I can't promise I can stay in such clear emotional honesty,  as I said at the start I have much more practice/comfort with intellectual honesty this life.  But I can promise I'll try, I'll do my damnedest to stay in the place where I'm emotionally honest and vulnerable moving forward.  And, I can promise I'll fight like a hellcat to claw my way back to a place of emotional honesty when I recognize I've fallen away from it.  

Is that enough? For now at least?  Can that be good enough for where we are in this moment in reality? 

P. S.  After writing and posting all that,  I out of the blue got a song stuck in my head I've never heard before. Does that happen to anyone else ever?  Not my song,  and not a song my ears have heard - just a song sung inside my head about exactly this.  About the bravery of staying here, because it's in the place where there's the potential of loss that what's missing and what matters most is to be found.  Those aren't the actual words of the song singing in my head right now - but since it's not my song nor have I ever heard it played/sung/recorded,  the actual lyrics aren't currently mine to share. But it's the same theme,  the same epiphany. And it's a beautiful song.  Even just hearing it randomly inside my head this morning. 

Pre-coffee Meditations on a Sunrise. While cuddling my 13 year old dog.

 For the record, I find Eric's soul light the most beautiful brilliant Energy that I have ever seen. I always have.  And when he is excited hopeful of joy,  there is nothing more luminous or desirable to me.  But I won't pretend I know what he needs for that - it's different for each of us in every life.  If your soul lived an infinite number of lives,  you'd find an infinite number of permutations for happiness and purpose dependent on your own personal needs and the society/milieu you were born into.  even if you know what was the key to someone's happiness and purpose in past lives doesn't mean you know about their current one or their future ones.  That's why I said he needs to figure out what his is for him this life and I will accept that. And I will hope for him he finds it in this life before his window(s) of opportunity close.  

I don't pretend that I know what his chosen happiness this life is - I can't know unless/until he knows and even then I won't if he keeps it bottled inside or tries to deny it.  And I won't pretend that whatever he needs for his happiness will definitively align with what creates my joy and meaning in this current life - how could I claim that without knowing what he needs for his?  

I just know that his soul light is beautiful and priceless and I prefer to exist in and believe in a reality where it shines across eternity like an undimmed star.  So long as this Universe lasts, light never ends.  No matter how far away it is or how long it takes to arrive,  or how vast the empty dark spaces it must cross.  Even when the star you can see all the way out here in our tiny solar system in this far distant border galaxy itself has evolved (or died and been reborn) into something else,  the light it once emitted still shines onward and outward til it reaches even us here.  

Which is why my ego may hate the thought of him with someone else and my selfish desires may want his happiness to have me woven all through the essence of it - but I can rise above my ego and my selfishness for the sake of the beauty and brilliance I see in his soul light. I'd rather know he has in his life whatever makes him shine to bring the happiness he seeks in his life. 

I'd rather exist in a reality where his soul light shines as bright as it can than any of the infinite possibilities of his present/future where he's flickery or dimming his light to try to fit in someone else's box of what they convince him his life should look like.  Including me, if I am ever the someone whose ideas about defining/limiting his happiness are what dims his soul light.  

And that's why I have said I don't know a better way at this point, given the choices he has allowed others to make in his name and his own choices he has made, than to say he is free to figure out for himself the happiness he seeks then make the choices for his life to make it real.  Because I genuinely don't know what he needs this life to keep his soul light shining bright and while he might not know either, still I won't pretend I know better than him. I can't know unless he recognizes it and chooses it for himself. How could I?  I'm a healer and a wanderer and a precog and an empath and an energy worker and I go where I'm needed - I'm not a dictator or a dogmatist or a predeterminist or a worshiped idol on a pedestal or an empire builder. 

But also.  I need to carefully reflect on the very concept of "letting him go" make sure this isn't merely a reactionary response born of fear or hurt.  Because there is a fine line between freedom and shutting him out cutting off his access to reach  me.  And based on evidence from our past lives and from shared dream space and the bond in this life, taking away his hope of ever finding me or reaching me or running out of time to share our life paths is the quickest and most complete way to dim his light. I don't want to rationalize to myself behaviors that create the situation to perpetuate what I desire most to prevent from manifesting. 

But I do want to live in a reality where his soul light shines as bright and undimmed as possible.  Those are the choices and life paths I want to pick to determine which of the fatelines we walk for what remains of these current lives we have right now.  

It's that clear and that inchoate to me..... It always has been. 

 Apparently there was a confirmation for Eric's solo music email list that went to my spam folder.  Just saw it and clicked the link to confirm. Whoops. Sometimes, I can just be the absolute ditziest.....  My excuse is I was born pale white-blonde that turned strawberry blonde and didn't darken up til I was about 4. I'm truly a blonde just pretending to live the auburn/chestnut life....The glasses are real though(it's the contacts that are the lie -- I've had to wear prescription lenses since I was 9) --  I really am as myopic and bookish and dorky and  too smart for my own good as you'd expect if you see me in my glasses.

 

Guess if there was something in the last (checks calendar) 2.5 days that he sent out, I missed it. Must not have been meant to see it.... On the other hand, I guess this also confirms that two days later and in a different moon sign, I still stand by my analysis of my impulsivity of Friday morning's serendipity/synchronicity temptation. 

Okay, time to finish up this Midnight Toffee pint (my favorite flavor from Culver's, I bought a party pack of 4 pints of it last week when I drove past one that had it as their flavor of the day) then back to working.

 Also though, Midnight Toffee. I cannot recommend this custard highly enough!!!!! 

OMFG, so good!!!! Espresso infused dark chocolate custard with toffee bits and dark chocolate ribbon! And yes, I intend to eat this entire pint in my one sitting. I either eat like a health nut hippie foodie from France/Mediterranean/Middle East or an unsupervised small child -- no in between. This is an unsupervised child snuck downstairs broke into the freezer for midnight snack of Midnight Toffee pint, lol. Also, if I voluntarily offer to share my fave desserts with you, you know I really love you.

P.S. I love Dancers & Dogs!! They're a charity art project based in St. Louis that combines two of my favorite things (ballerinas AND dogs) to make beautiful images and they use the images to raise money and help animal shelters find homes for adoptable animals! Supporting them and seeing their social media posts always makes me grin -- I not only have their art book and several of their shirts, I intentionally buy their calendar (and gift their calendar) every year.  Also this red tank from their sample sale makes me so happy!!! Especially since they never did this particular line art design as one they sold properly. They have another line art design, just not this one.

 

 (And grateful that I naturally wear an extra small  (I've never dieted or done any restrictive eating habits other than for food allergies in my life, I pretty much just eat whatever I crave and as much of it as I want whenever I want) so I could stock up on one off $15 samples, first come first serve, when they were testing colors/designs. And yes, I have to wear another cami under racerbacks or they are indecent exposure between the nip slips and the side boob... This is it pulled up and back as much as possible... 28G should really not be a bra size... What the hell were G-d and genetics thinking with that anyway?!)

P. P. S.  Was not joking about eating the entire pint of custard in one sitting. 

But if you know me,  you knew that was not a threat, it was a promise, a deadly serious statement of fact. 

For the record,  while the Christina Perri song that was randomly in my head the other night IS beautiful always hits me in the feels, I hate that it was written for Breaking Dawn Pt 1 because I actively loathe Twilight and have refused to ever read the books as it's a textbook abusive relationship sold to tweens as forever love. It was created to intentionally market a textbook unhealthy abusive relationship standard ("I don't mean to hurt you, I just can't help myself because it's my nature" "we need to separate you from everyone else you've ever known or cared about to protect them from the violence of me and my life" "you should have no life outside of me" etc.)  to the absolutely most vulnerable age group of 11-17 year old girls who didn't know better.  EVERY girl I have ever known who was obsessed with the books and wanted a love like Bella and Edward has ended up in an emotionally manipulative and/or physically abusive and/or sexually abused relationships even after I pointed out to them when they were obsessed with the books why this fictional romance shouldn't be idealized by anyone ever as it's normalizing and rationalizing abuse patterns..... So I loathe Twilight on philosophical and psychological grounds and have since they were first published -- even before I saw play out the damage they did to people I care about. Whenever I hear the song, I try not to think about what the song was written for because I don't want that association with the song... Because i REALLY REALLY REALLY loathe Twilight and it has actively damaged the lives of so many young women in an entire generation before they were mature enough to know better and recognize the abusive patterns it mistakenly calls "love" and taught them to want. 

I'm good, just didn't have anything to say this weekend -- was just focusing on cooking delicious food and sleep and taking the dog on long walks and reading a lot and candles and just a nice cozy at home weekend. I drank a bottle of Li Veli Orion primitivo (I really like primitivos, probably my favorite Italian red when I can find them -- and I say that as someone who's a lover of French wines, and I found out in August that Barriques carries this primitivo for like $14 a bottle!) across Friday night/Saturday night -- so I was super cuddly even though I had nobody to cuddle with except the dog and cat. But the dog and the cat loved it, lol. (red wine makes me extra physically expressive snuggly.  I'm also more likely to make out with random hot strangers if I'm single and decide to drink red wine than under the influence of anything else. It's red wine specific love of humanity wanting to share physical affection. So i generally only let me drink red wine when safely at home or out with friends who love hugs or with someone I'm actually in a relationship with -- I do NOT let me drink red wine in public while single unless I'm out with family/friends to keep me reined in only hugging/snuggling with them, lol. Gets me in trouble for leading people on if I drink red wine in a dating or going out situation if I'm not in a committed relationship. It's a specifically red wine thing -- doesn't even happen with white wines.)   I cooked up a wok of rainbow green curry with glass noodles on Saturday night, Ate the last of the leftovers for dinner tonight. (Rainbow in that I used veggies of every color in the rainbow -- white parsnips, red spicy peppers, pink tomatoes, orange carrots, yellow tomatoes, green beans and green curry sauce, blue basil (that one's a stretch as the basil was green gradient into purple, I admit), purple cabbage (since this can dye things blue probably more blue from the purple cabbage than the basil, lol.)  I didn't realize until already in process and had it in my head i wanted a green curry that I hadn't yet bought more regular rice and that I only had wild rice, couscous, quinoa, and risotto rice atm. But then I remembered I still had some glass noodles left and decided it would be a noddle veggie curry dish and that would be delicious too! Also, if you've never added parsnip to your green or red curries, I HIGHLY recommend it! It provides this really nice nutty sweetness -- I discovered it quite by accident several years ago and now I swear by it! It's not particularly good in yellow curry, imho, but it's INCREDIBLE in any sort of green curry or red curry! I've never yet tried adding parsnips to panang or mus-man curry -- I'd imagine it would be amazing in a mus-man curry though. Not certain in panang with the peanut sauce, I think the astringency in parsnips would be dominant flavor when combined with the peanut in panang -- but panang curry is one of my absolute forever favorites even without parsnips included, lol...

At work right now, scanning and inputting and filing while catching up on news via twitter and some youtube astrologers that I'm behind on. O, there was a massive issue when I got here though with a water leak in the reverse osmosis cooler in the vestibule.... I didn't have time to put out the sprinkler for the front garden because I was reading until evening and then when i got here had to deal with the water spraying everywhere inside. (The water valve for the vestibule isn't how it's hooked up, it runs a line from the reverse osmosis filter in the service kitchen sink and it was the line into the cooler itself that looked like it had been cut. So I just turned off the cold water valve under the sink in the kitchen (and not only did I audibly hear the water stop constantly flowing but the water stop spraying everywhere in the vestibule.) It means I have no reverse osmosis water for my tea tonight -- but I'll just use tap water in the electric kettle and if the hard water makes a problem I can't descale, I'll just buy us a new electric kettle for the office. It was more important I stopped the unexpected fountain spraying all over the vestibule. I have no idea how long it was going on and I'm hoping it won't cause rot issues in the drywall or behind the plastic baseboards. I put towels down on the worst of the puddle and then used the remaining water to mop the floors of the entire vestibule and the down slope into the service hallways that some of the water had run down the grout lines of the tile but wasn't enough to easily sop up with towels. (I also called my parents to let them know as soon as I'd turned off the water access so it wouldn't be a first thing Monday morning emergency surprise for them and then left notes on my mom's desk and on the valve I turned off for them to deal with it properly to get fixed tomorrow. I just triaged stopping the problem so it doesn't get worse and they can deal with fixing it this week when things aren't crazy stressful without paying a plumber or my Uncle Jeff to come in on a Sunday night.)  My current theory is it was just aging plastic or there might be a mouse inside that got thirsty since the dog's water bowl was bone dry over the weekend because we weren't here except to water things yesterday evening in the heat. 

Luckily, my hose spigot for watering my tomatoes/peppers/herbs out back is connected to one of the two bathrooms in service as opposed to the kitchen because I took care of the water emergency before taking care of my thirstiest plant -- otherwise I'd have been hauling 2 gallons of watering can refills until everything was taken care of.  (With the hurricane hitting the south, we're going to get mild sunny weather here for the following week -- highs in the mid 70s and lows in the low to mid 50s. So while I do still need to water the bed after a day and a half with highs in the 90s since the last round of storms, my flowers will survive just fine til tomorrow evening with the current temps. i don't need to make sure I sunrise water them. I would if I had to, I've done it before when I can't in the evening or promised overnight storms miss us. But right now, they'll be fine til tomorrow evening.) So I watered and harvested my herbs and nightshades after dealing with the water emergency inside that kept me from properly caring for the flower bed and front flower planters. (I did check the planters though, they still had enough  moisture under the surface from me watering them yesterday evening that they'll be fine until tomorrow.) 

So anyway. nothing really to overthink about my silence -- just coziness and rest and self care weekend at home ignoring social media (I have like 500 unread emails I haven't even glanced at and like 60 facebook notifications, oops) and the world outside my own little world of me and my fur babies and my plants and my books. O and my sister and brother-in-law were on a red eye back to Seattle from Hawaii with the kids so they were group texting with me moth related jokes early this morning. Real groaners, lol. 

Don't have all that much going on this week. Mikaela starts school on Sept 2 (she's 16 and learning to drive already) so I'll be planning to spend at least Mon and Tues during the day with her (migraines for both of us allowing) -- current plan is her mom is going to drop her off at my place in the morning before work. Weds evening Crissy and I have APT tickets to see A Phoenix Too Frequent inside at the Touchstone (masks required.)  Thursday grandma has a future residents (and family) open house in the afternoon that my parents and I are planning to go to with her. Pretty sure I'll be getting her ready and taking her and bringing her home again so my parents don't have to take off as much time middle of the day working. Pretty sure that's it... Grandma's calendar for September is actually very empty of appointments (as was her August) which is good since we still need to figure out going through her things, packing, and moving once they tell us the official opening date at Cardinal View. She can do a relatively slow, multi-step, move out though before selling her condo. It's actually really nice it's so new (even if it's still off gassing so it makes me headachey/nauseous) because they didn't start it til March 2020 and that means that covid or other serious disease outbreaks in elder care was planned in from the start. So each unit has its own HVAC and the common space have brand new state of the art anti-microbial ionization HVAC systems and airflow testing throughout. And they're requiring all staff be vaccinated. Which is all greatly appreciated, tbh.

I also have some have tos I'm procrastinating on that are weighing on me even as I'm avoiding them for now. and this is the order I intend to deal with them. None of them are that stressful (except for the third one) just require I actually go in person to physical places while they're open to deal with them: 

1) I need to go get a new phone; have needed to since pre-covid, it literally doesn't even work without being plugged in or external battery and now it's old enough that google play no longer supports the device for updating apps. Oops. I know what phone I plan to get, I just have to go in and do it. 

2) I need to go into the DMV and renew my driver's license before my birthday. I have over a month, but I still need to actually do it. 

3) I need to figure out an auto loan and transferring the black work Prius to me and selling my Scion once the weather cools down enough for the ac to not be such a noticeable issue for whoever I sell it to. I've never sold a car before... I've always inherited used cars from family/work and then driven them until they get such a severe malfunction they become inoperable or they get totaled (like my old Prius when the tire went flying off after Firestone did a tire rotation and didn't properly tighten all the lug nuts....) I don't know a damn thing about selling a car or even looking for someone to buy the car. How do people do it? Where do you list it? How do you transfer the title? Am I expected to sell it with my plates and get new plates for the Prius (as opposed to the work vanity plates) or do I transfer my plates and make them apply for new plates?! What order do I do things in between the buying nad the selling and the insurance and the DMV and all of it?!  

Honestly. I have no fucking idea any of this.... I've never sold a used car before. Not looking forward to the process of getting it done, tbh, but I'll be happy once it IS done. And it does need to be done... Qith concerts/fests returning in summer 2022, I don't want to have non-functional ac for roadtrips. Dealing with it during covid was fine, I didn't drive anywhere far over the summers. And I've already been planning to switch from the Scion back to a Prius in the next several years for the mileage even before learning that the air compressor is $1.4k fix to get the ac functional. And then, now with the chip shortages is one of the best sellers markets for used cars in my adult lifetime (and I have a car lined up/claimed from work so I don't have to worry about what to do after I sell it.)

I will be brave. I will not let anything take away, What's standing in front of me. Every breath, Every hour, has come to this. One step closer.

 Me (laying in bed listening to the crickets and the frogs and the rain; lights off, eyes closed trying to sleep)

My brain, earworming me apropos of abso-fucking-lutely nothing:  "I have died every day waiting for you. Darling, don't be afraid I have loved you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more."

Me: "What the fuck.  Supposed to be sleeping.  Not singing."

My brain, still singing: "And all along I believed I would find you. Time has brought your heart to me. I have loved you for a thousand years, I'll love you for a thousand more."

Me: "Subconscious, you're not even being subtle.  This is the exact opposite of subtle!"

My brain, whisper singing: "One step closer."

Me: "I give up.  Sing me whatever songs you want.  Just let me sleep while you sing."

My brain: "ONE STEP CLOSER. I have died every day waiting for you. Darling, don't be afraid I have loved you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more. And all along I believed I would find you. Time has brought your heart to me. I have loved you for a thousand years, I'll love you for a thousand more."

Good night. Sweet dreams.  I hope you're now as unexpectedly fucking earwormed as I am. 😂

[Post title: lyrics to the Christina Perri song A Thousand Years. ]

Okay so on the scale from 1 to I'm really bad at denying me things that I desire except by not letting me see the temptation at all.....

This morning, as I was scrolling through my facebook it decided to show me as suggested content Eric's solo music artist page. And, like if' I'd been in feisty head leading looking for a fight space i was in during moon in Aries, I'd have seen it and rolled my eyes and said to myself, "well that's going to just bring me future heartache I can't afford" and kept scrolling. But moon moved out of Aries and into Taurus at 11:35pm CST last night. And what did I say about when the moon is in Taurus and how I'm more sensitive to which sign the moon is in than which phase the moon is in? Yeah. Might as well be a Libra moon, even more love led then a Pisces or Cancer moon which is just all emotions guiding everything for all my ability to deny my heart what it insists upon.... So it was under a Taurus moon this morning, right after I'd showered and made breakfast and was sipping on coffee with my dog asleep across my feet while a much needed wild fierce summer storm rolled in, that I saw his solo artist page listed as suggested content.

And damnit if I couldn't keep my damn self from clicking on it out of curiosity and in a happy creature comfort sated state...  And then I saw that he said he's been working on a solo album and it piqued my curiosity so I clicked on the link to the page and then I was even more curious. And then I kind of sort of said, "well fuck it how am I ever going to assuage my curiosity now unless I sign up on the damn email list?!" So I did.

Right now, I don't regret that  choice at all. It might not have been a good idea, or at least not a healthy one, but I don't regret that choice. Moon's still in Taurus though. But also. I was thinking about it (AFTER it was fait accompli) and I realized it's really unfair of me to say, "Right, it's for you to tell me what you want -- but I'm going to keep you from reaching me every way I can think of." I mean, how can he communicate anything if I refuse to listen or let him reach me? And if I say it's on him to decide what he wants, then that means it's for me to at least keep some line of communication open to him in case he chooses to use it. Anything else would be unjust and unfair. Like telling someone to cast a ballot but they can't use any writing utensils to fill it in.... It's fair to tell someone to make their own choices by their own ethics, but then you have to make sure they have the means to communicate that choice once they've made it.

Is it a rationalizing after the fact? Yeah. but, that doesn't mean that the realization of the injustice inherent in telling him, "you tell me what you want once you figure it out but I'm going to avoid letting you reach me to tell me anything" wasn't a true realization. An injustice is an injustice no matter what it was that got you to the realization you were guilty of it.

I mean. I've TOLD you that the only way I know not to give into temptation when it comes to him is to not let me see him or look at him at all. That's what I was doing at The Ark after I'd been wrestling with my "I need to let him go because that's what he's made clear his desires and moral choices stand" when I spent the entire show refusing to even glance at him..... I was intentionally not looking because I know me and I knew if I looked I'd waver and give in and it would be rebuilding all over again for me to decide to

 I've just sort of accepted that my facebook has a mind of its own and will listen to the Universe about making sure that EVERY post ever that could remind me of his existence shows up in my facebook feed no matter my settings.... But this is the first time the algorithmic overlords decided to show me his personal artist page as opposed to posts from the band that are centered around him....

 And. This is an Achilles heel for me with him. I know it is. If I see him, I can't stay angry or upset or hard hearted or trying to do the "right" thing even if it upsets and hurt me.... I can only be stoic and martyring to do what I get into my head is honorable but hard as far as letting him go when I don't see him.  I just see him and something inside my heart flicks on like a light switch says, "O there you are!! Why has it been so damn long?" and then I just want to wrap my arms around him hug him tight and not let go.  It's why I know I'm incapable of making me let him go if I let me see him or look at him -- I can only keep my heart enslaved to my head that it's the right thing to do so long as I don't see him. As soon as I see him, all I wanna do is hug him and see him light up with joy. 

I'm just really bad at this unless I deny myself ever seeing him at all, ok? I know it. You know it. Pretty sure fucking everybody knows it if they bothered to watch me try.  There's just some things I fail at no matter how hard I try. This is one of them -- along with pessimism, not trying to read the titles/authors any time I see a book, giving up, and knitting.

So anyway. That happened today. I don't know why it happened today of all days, and while the moon was in Taurus so I'm extra susceptible to anything Venusian/love related heart leading. But I'm just acknowledging it happened, keeping myself honest about my impulsive knee jerk actions/reactions from the heart not the overthinking. Because it happened. And, if I don't keep me honest, who will?

P.S. Yeah yeah yeah. I know. Mixed signals much?  Pot kettle black on that... I own it. But, my hair is super curly today and my eyes are an intensely brilliant aquamarine and I have on one of my tie dyes I made in July that always makes me feel a hug of love thinking of my sister, brother-in-law, nephew, niece, and Mikaela since I made it with them!

It's alright to roll your eyes at me for it. Lord knows I've been rolling my eyes laughing at me over it all day. Laughing at me for it, but not feeling like I made a mistake. So there's that. Hope springs eternal and all.

And don't worry -- no matter how much you laugh at me, I promise I laugh at myself WAY more.

 P. S.  It's also worth me reiterating that I read actions (and inactions) of Eric's as statements about his choices and ethics and answers directly from him about whether he wants to include me or exclude me from his life.  

His choice end of August 2019 not to respond or acknowledge me telling his personal accounts (on both instagram and twitter) that going live on the band's instagram account "to celebrate with all our fans and Kickstarter backers" was an act of exclusionary ostracism and bullying so long as fans are blocked there for having been honest that the country music at shows was going to stop them attending shows, to me that choice he made not to acknowledge it but instead ignore it gaslight the issue was a very strong statement of "I don't care about you or want you in my life" choice of exclusion.  And I have read EVERY instance of EVERY time he has ever gone live on the band's instagram account since then (or every future time he does it) as a reaffirmation that he doesn't want me included in his life.  For me,  his actions/inactions are much louder statements about his ethics,  desires,  and choices than any amount of reaching for me via the bond or in dream space. That's just mixed signalling from his subconscious, his actions shape his actual life are the strongest indicator of his actual choices for his happiness and his life path.  

So if you want to know my current beliefs about his choices for his happiness this life,  I don't think he desires to include me in it nor does he care if any of his actions are immoral or hurtful.  That is what he spent the fall/winter of 2019/20 teaching me and all of 2020 and the first half of 2021 reaffirming for me every week.  

Which means that while I'm happy being single not actively looking to date, I see him as having rejected me chosen not to want me included in his life or as any part of his happiness,  and so if I meet anyone else who I spark with I'll choose to give them a chance.  I'm not passively waiting hopelessly for his choices to change - I'm taking him at his word and action as to his choices for the happiness he seeks for his life. And right now,  his actions over the last two years affirm/reaffirm to me that he doesn't desire to include me in the happiness he chooses for himself and if I desire companionship then I should be seeking other lovers,  not waiting or expecting anything from him.  And that's what it is.  Just because there's a bond between our souls doesn't mean that we have claims on the other person's free will choices or that either of us should accept being treated dishonestly/unfairly/cruelly out of any sort of codependency.  Just like any relationship, we have to choose each other and treat each other with respect not entitlement for there to be anything real or worthwhile between us. That's basic premises for any interpersonal connection, soul bond or no soul bond. 

And that is very much my current assessment of what he has thus far chosen for his happiness in his life. That's why I see it as hopeless for me to reach out to him to ask him if we can please heal and fix this mess between us.  I may want to do it,  but it would be futile given his actions and what they show his choices to be for his life at this time.  I'm single because I'm picky know my own worth and don't wish to waste my finite time/energy on relationships my heart isn't in - not for lack of opportunities or because I'm turning other men down waiting for Eric. I'm not single for his sake.  I'm single because I'm an introvert so I don't get lonely and I'm happier alone than wasting time in energetically draining mediocre/bad company. 

He's free to choose me if that's what he wants - but based on his past choices in recent years,  I'm not holding my breath expecting he will.  I'd be a complete fool in denial of reality if I was.... And I may be a hopeless romantic eternal optimist about the possibilities of the future,  but I'm always a stoic realist refusing to lie to myself or others about the realities of the past/present. 

The difference of course is, when you set a dog "free" the only thing it knows is that it's been abandoned by the only person(s) that mattered most to it the dog is literally losing their entire world and everything it was built upon -- but a person always has choices for building their own life. 

The reason that I chose to let him go to seek whatever happiness he chooses for himself is because he's a human soul with free will and choices -- not a bonded dog. As far as I'm concerned, he's free to choose whatever he wants. And I do mean anything he wants: I'm not excluding me from his options. I never was. He just needs to figure out what he wants and set that as his course he chooses for himself. The trick to life, to all lives, is that you can have anything you want but not everything you want and everything you choose comes at the cost of all you don't choose.  You need to choose what matters to you, the things that you don't consider sacrificial, and make your life path choices accordingly.

Rejection would be me saying I don't want him -- but that's not what I'm saying at all. I think I've been very clear about the fact that I DO want him and never cease wanting him (in this or any life) and will always choose him if he's an option for me.  The two caveats for that are: 1) his free will matters to me and if he doesn't choose me, then I'd rather let him go 2) I won't compromise my ethics to be with him because if I were willing to do that then we could never have anything real or meaningful.  That means no ethical or spiritual bypassing and no lying to myself or anyone else about the choices and actions he makes or allowed to be  made in his name by those closest to him that he should have every expectation of trusting. 

No amount of reminding me of the pull to him and how much I selfishly desire him or making me question what I'm doing by not giving in to my own selfishness can or will make me break  those two caveats to acting upon my own desires. Because both his free will and the importance of ethical lines are more important than my own selfish whims and desires ever could be. 

But when I say that what I want at this time is to set him free what I'm saying is it's time for him to do his own inner soul searching and decide for himself what matters to him, what he chooses for himself, and determining his own ethical lines. And those are things only he can decide for himself. Which means he must be free to examine himself and what he will and won't stand for or allow to be done in his name. Which means that as far as I'm concerned, it will be for him to reach out and let me know after he has finished his dark night(s) of the soul to decide what he chooses for himself.  Which means that I'd rather not be tempted by reminders until after he makes his decisions and makes it clear what his choices and ethics are. I'm going to continue to avoid things that remind me of him or his band, I'd rather not see him at this time when the wanting doesn't do me any good and there's no way to achieve what I desire without compromising my own ethics.

I'll neither assume that I'm included or excluded from his choices except when he has made his choices for himself and made clear what those choices/ethical lines are. As far as I'm concerned, that final choice of his the penny's still in the air until he makes his own decisions. The options for the path ahead are all in his hands, in his choices. It is only in anyone else's hands if he gives them the control over choices made in his name and avoids the ethical soul searching of his own.

That's what I mean when I say I'm making myself keep my hands open in order let him go so he can decide for himself what he wants for his life and to choose his own happiness. It's the only way I see for me to fairly navigate this mess with honesty, justice, compassion, integrity, and a respect for free will/karma to determine one's own life path.

 So. I was thinking yesterday while waiting to numb up before my filling. (It sucked, took 2 shots of articaine which were already thrice as much as I should have as normal dosage for my weight -- and even then my lower lip was insufficiently numb but the best they could do because any more local would be unsafe. Fucking red head gene, I tell ye.... The theory my dentist and I have is that it was having 2 small fillings (one on each bottom back molar as my dentist dislikes numbing both of those major nerves as it can create a choking hazard) within a couple weeks of each other so my body remembered the neuro blocker and was fighting it somehow from binding onto the nerves. Which makes sense -- most people with any of the 3 redhead genes quickly get habituated to or have drugs stop functioning if they even functioned well in the first place. Redhead genes affect how your nerves experience pain as well - you're relatively unresponsive to blunt trauma,  but all nerve pain is experienced as burning tingles - including cold. ) 

But anyway. What I was thinking was.... y'know how I've said that Eric's more stubborn than me, because his head and heart are in alignment with what his soul knows he wants whereas I'm constantly fighting myself and my own interests when I get to thinking he should look elsewhere? Well. If I accept that assumption about the stubbornness of his heart and his soul... then.... I mean... Have you ever met a bonded dog whose people abandoned it -- either on the side of the road or at a rest stop or in the woods or surrendered to a shelter? Have you ever seen how broken inside a bonded dog is when it feels abandoned by the person(s) it loved and trusted most? When it thinks that person(s) has stopped loving it in return? Have you ever seen the light go out of their eyes and the hopelessness settle in when they realize that their bonded person is never coming back for them? How they just give up and go through the motions but the spark inside of them is gone except at every little thing that reminds them to think maybe, just maybe, their person came back for them after all?

I couldn't get that empathic image out of my head.... And I couldn't let go of this question once I'd thought it: I. Is that what I'm doing to him by pushing him away, trying to let him go? Am I doing to him what is done to abandoned animals by the people they trusted and loved most?  Because, that sort of love and trust and faith and loyalty isn't the kind that can ever dim or fade -- there is only the ever present pain of the loss and incomprehension and betrayal and still missing them, still longing for them.... Still hoping that in defiance of all logic and time passing and everything changing, your person will come back for you. 

And thinking that broke my heart into the tiniest shattered sharpest pieces.... Like dropping glass onto cement and cutting your hands on the millions of jagged shards and fine powder, not knowing how they can ever be fit back together. Some glass things you drop and it's just a bottle from a 6 pack, replaceable and forgettable and sweeping it up is easy peasy and you forget about it once the mess is cleaned up. And some glass things are like one of a kind treasured sculptures you were gifted by someone who really mattered to you and no amount of cleanup can replace the space where it once was. It's important to recognize what sort of glass you're dealing with before you start throwing it around like it's unbreakable.

How could I let myself be guilty of doing that to him? How could I put him into that sort of constant hell, the place of unending loss? Why would I ever do that to him?!

What the hell am I doing by pushing him away? And why am I doing it?! 

Pre-dawn. Sun's coming up. I'm headed home and thence to bed. I've already got 34 hours in at work and it's not even start of Weds work day....

P. S.  It's a remarkably impossibly gorgeous sunrise this morning

P. P. S.  The song haunting me on like every radio station and at the dentist office is Melissa Etheridge's I'm the Only One.  Pretty sure that's happened literally every time I turn back toward him after realizing my good logic on bad premise(s) has caused me to be a source of hurt to him.... 

 So, I wanted to make sure I was clear about something. Now that I'm feeling clear with myself about it.

Yesterday I was thinking about the question so often asked by guidance counselors and therapists and spiritual workers: What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? And I didn't have any conscious mind mediated answers yesterday.  But today after my hair dried post shower, I took an afternoon nap and woke up from my nap with the only answer I could find. The only answer I could come up with was that no matter where he is I would run to Eric with open hands and ask him, "Can we please make this right? I don't know how it all got this fucked up, and I don't really care about the blame game. I just want to know: Can we please heal?"  I don't even demand that he choose me -- if he wants someone else that's for him to choose. I genuinely just want to know he is happy with finding whatever happiness he seeks for his life. I don't demand I be a part of it if that's not what he wants this life. And if I'm fully honest, I don't know if he can have that if things are unhealed between us -- even if we both just try to bury and repress and deny ourselves and move on, having things unhealed and wrong between us is mentally/emotionally/soul level unhealthy for us both.  (But, also, if I'm honest honest....Yes I want him to be happy more than I want him to be mine so I'd let him go if that's what he wants/chooses -- but I'd prefer if his happiness have me as a part of it. I can accept if it doesn't so long as whatever he chooses makes him happy, but that's not what I want.)

 Anyway. I tried to think of anything else I would do to answer that question and that was the only answer my heart had amid all my soul searching over the last day or so....That's what I would do if I could do anything in the entire world and knew I wouldn't fail -- I'd go to him no matter where he is and ask him if we can fix what's broken and heal.

The follow up question is typically: Why aren't you doing it? What's stopping you? Well practically speaking, I have to get a dental filling tomorrow and then on Friday I have to take my grandma to a PT appointment and I don't know if me or my father is taking grandma to her intake interview on Wednesday for Cardinal View where she'll be moving later this autumn. But... More accurately as to the deeper reason not the incidental "life happening" reasons...  I guess... It's because I don't know what good it would do if I were to do that nor do I hold out much hope that any of the fundamentals at play here have changed enough for a good outcome even if I did say fuck it and go to him asking for a chance to make things right before they get even more un-right. And without any signs that there was any alteration in the shaky foundations and choices that got us here, how can I expect a reset asking we heal this mess will lead anywhere other than repeating old cycles?

 It's hard to do what your instincts tell you to do when you have no hope it will make any difference or help change things for the better, y'know?

So. I guess that's why instead of just going to him to ask him what we can do to make things right and to heal us like I most truly want, I'm working to make myself let him go, to free him to pursue whatever happiness it is that he chooses for himself.  Because if I don't see any hope in me doing what I want reaching toward him to ask for healing and trying to make things right after they went so horribly wrong, the next kindest and best thing I can do is to set him free to seek out whatever it is he most truly desires for his happiness. What else am I supposed to do?

And why do I assume he can be happy? Because it's what I see in him, what I always see in him. Just bright brilliant joyousness. It's how I always remember him when I think of him.  It's curious because everyone calls him emo, he even owns it, but it threw me the first time I heard him referred to that way.  It's not that I haven't seen images and videos of him where he's emo -- but it's not how I think of him. Because every time I see him, I see his soul lit up like a thousand suns and he's grinning like a kid on Christmas morning and his eyes are just so happy when I look in them they make me feel that joy and brightness and inner peace like the softness in the world while there's fresh falling snow. So it's hard for me to reconcile that incandescence I associate with seeing him and the thought of his general state of being as emo. Because that's not how he is in my memories or any time we share dream space reach for each other down the bond or the times in the past we've been in the same room/space physically. It's not that I haven't seen him shadowed in images and videos or that I disbelieve such inner desolation is within him/his life experiences, it's just that I've never seen him anything but full of soul light in my presence or whenever I'm looking at him. Which is why I assume there's a brilliantly beautiful happiness for him out there to choose if he seeks it -- because whenever I get to see him all I see is that brightness and joy in him.

Sun's in Virgo and Moon's in Pisces all day today -- my head is busy (re)organizing books and cleaning while moving things/reshelving/reorganizing and my heart is in charge demanding I be honest let it lead for a bit. I told you this morning, Pisces moons make me honest and lead from the heart, not the head. I don't overthink, it's like tapping directly into my heart until the moon changes again and moves into Aries, lol. I'm also extra intensely empathic under Pisces moons, even for me, even without wearing any rose quartz. (I actually have no gemstones or crystals on me tonight -- I forgot to put back on my rings and necklaces after my shower before I came into work. I keep fiddling with the invisible lack of ring on my right ring finger where I've been wearing my midnight skies colored iolite with the star like inclusion and Greek key style repeating s band. It's funny, I have rings that I've worn every day since high school/college, but yet it's that newest of my regular rings that I feel like I'm missing keep fidgeting with an invisible ring. It's what made me notice I'd left home without putting any of my rings back on. Also occasionally playing with an invisible ring on my left ring finger, which is weird because I don't have any rings I regularly wear on that finger -- just rings I wear when I'm going out for a show or to meet with friends and don't have the energy to deal with being hit on. It's a cheap trick, to wear a nice ring like it's a wedding band, but it does work to keep from getting hit on. People see a ring on the left finger and make assumptions because of cultural norms -- but sometimes a ring is just a ring and if nobody asks, there's no reason to correct an assumption.)

It is a blustery surprise summer storm that feels like autumn is on the edges of the wind.  (It's only 67F right now and the earliest leaves have already started to fall.) was supposed to be sunny all day,  but my guess is the hurricanes/tropical storms in the gulf and east coast pushed the fronts that brought Saturday storms that were over Lake Michigan all day yesterday back toward us.  (The rains on Sat and chaotic 7ft waves/rip currents with 30mph wind gusts stay off beaches and small craft advisory from Kenosha County to Sheboygan County were my reasons I decided to wait.  Another moon to deal with the cleansing in Wauwatosa.) Anyway,  this is a perfect summer turning to fall cozy type rain! It was a weirdly golden but shadowed sunrise before the  predicted sunny morning with 3% chance of rain unexpectedly turned into hours of dapply patter rains with no end currently in sight,  lol.   Such a happy surprise this beautiful early autumn's a-coming morning rain! 

 And this is the best stuffed pepper stuffing I've mixed up yet!  (I ate it in an egg scramble this morning.)  Stuffed peppers in August to early October is one of my favorite things!!! I don't like store bought out of season peppers and I loathe raw tomatoes.  But the thing is, tomato plants are one of my absolute favorite things to grow - I just love the look and smell of the plants and watching them go from flower to fruit.  So I always grow heirloom variety incredible tomatoes and then what I don't give away,  I either roast or stew or simmer an easy/quick sauce. (I adore cooked tomatoes,  it's just the juice of the raw tomato I loathe.) Typically,  I slice them, gut the seeds then simmer them in olive oil with fresh garlic and sweet spicy peppers and whatever seasonings call to me.  This time I used roma sized jaunes, little yellow jelly bean shaped ones, and small pink teardrop shaped ones and then my only spicy-sweet peppers currently ready are flaming flares. O and I added some cholula as well as the umami seasoning,  za'atar,  and apocalypse blend in this particular batch.  And then this one is a black bean filling with that (last one was was a lentil and couscous base. Sometimes it's ground beef or turkey, sometimes with rice sometimes not... Sometimes corn or peas for sweetness when it's not heirloom tomato season - though right now these tomatoes cook up sweeter than corn...  Depends on my mood when I make the filling/base.) O,  and I finished the kalamata cheddar so opened a garlic & onion jack cheese to go with it. As I've said before,  I cook whatever my mood is and should not even be allowed to boil water for tea if I'm in a foul temper,  lol.  But today was a good mood and delicious food!  Looking forward to seeing if I have a Carmen or Baron pepper turned red and thus ready to pick this evening so I can stuff and roast it!!  

Okay, dishes and more coffee (last of the True Coffee Roasters Mexico Altura - which saddens me as it's one of my fav coffee roasts in recent years.) And then moving books to get my living room/reading nook back in order. All while listening to the rain out the open balcony door. 

There's something about when the sun or moon is in Virgo or Capricorn that just kicks my ass into gear to be productive, ruthless about cleaning/organizing, and to stop procrastinating.... And Aries or Sag sun and moon tend to kick my ass into gear about exercising and taking better physical care of myself.  I have no idea why. The rest of the time, I can be so go with the flow it's rather lazy or just not aware of the passage of time but as soon as the moon or sun enter Virgo/Capricorn I realize I just need to get serious and knuckle down do specific things. I have my moon and Jupiter in Cap and my Mars, Uranus, and Neptune in Sag but I have no planets in Virgo or Aries. The houses each of those signs start in make sense, but not the signs that they start. Leo, Scorpio and Gemini sun or moon tend to correlate with my temper having a super short fuse. And I find that when the sun or moon is in Pisces, Libra, Cancer, or Taurus is when I tend toward feeling intense love and wanting peace and forgiveness and reunion to make things right between Eric and me -- it's also when I'm most likely to reach out toward him along the bond because my stubbornness is softened by my emotions/desire and in spite of my analytical mind telling me that's only going to cause me and him more heartache in the end if things don't change.... I didn't realize how consistently my sporadic bouts of productivity aligned with when the moon was in certain signs til I bought a Llewellyn Astrological calendar for my calendar this year. It's eerie!! 

 O the post that got et had nothing to do with recent posts. So if that's your primary concern,  you missed nothing.  It was about:

~the reasons I'm going to put off for another moon the cleansing in Wauwatosa and visiting Lion's Den Gorge.  And anyway,  the precog flashes of me there I got after looking at summer pictures,  I was there while the leaves change. 

~talking about the weird energies atm and how edgy over protective my guardian deities/angels are right now (especially if I'm wandering at night) and how closed off DND cemeteries are at nights right now.  The best I can describe it is that even though it's currently a very bright full moon, light doesn't travel far.  The darkness is hungry and the shadows devour the light so things aren't illuminating properly....  It's been going on for most of the last month, and every time I try to write or talk about it,  posts disappear,  texts never arrive,  phones drop signal/call suddenly,  or something inexplicable like another driver trying to co-occupy my lane suddenly diverts conversation. I don't know why this is happening, but be wary of it.  Nothing good happens to societies in times of man when the darkness eats the light even at the full moon.... Especially with the spirit world so en guarde.... 

~my thoughts about not attending MKE irishfest this year - first time since I started going in high school that it's been running and I haven't gone.... And how the posts of my friends onstage and in the audience are giving me heebie-jeebies because of how not distanced people are without masks. 

~the reason I ignore CDC guidelines and WHO since they're policy makers and thus constrained by politicians not the pure science/medical data and just listen to the stats of immunologists/epidemiologists and the in vivo real world experience of doctors and nurses. (reminder: I was pre-med intending to go into pediatrics with one of my undergrad degrees in Medical Microbiology & Immunology until I realized that the American for profit insurance driven prescription care would not help me be a healer for fixing people when people break and helping them learn how not to break - but it would burden me with extensive student debt,  frustration at the bureaucracy and injustice of insurance care,  and cause physical/mental burnout.  This means,  however,  that I'm constantly reading scientific studies, current molecular bio and biochem advances,  and bacteriology/virology/immunology discoveries for fun AND I have a large number of college friends who are currently medical researchers and doctors. So I stick to the scientific data sets,  not public policy,  to guide my actions in everything related to covid.  So I never disinfected my groceries,  but I am stringent about washing hands before eating and wearing masks in public spaces. And the data is clear that if you are in close physical contact unmasked around someone unmasked carrying delta variant for 2.5 minutes,  there will be high enough viral load to hijack your cells for replication. Vaccines trigger immune memory cells to quell infections before you get seriously sick - not immune response cells to protect your cells from getting hijacked as replicators of virus.  If you are unmasked around other unmasked people it's a matter of when you get it, not if. You may not be symptomatic,  but you will be contagious when you have it and that is why vaccinated parents who are only unmasked around vaccinated friends/family are spreading it to their own unvaccinated kids in the home. Delta replicates in the lungs,  not mucus linings, so it can carry an aerosolized viral load to infect others EVEN THOUGH you can test negative to nasal swabs multiple times while contagious.  Delta variant has an R0 of about 8 (higher than almost any other currently known virus; orig covid was R0 1-2 and alpha was R0 of 3) meaning if you are contagious you will spread it to 8 out of 10 people you are in close/prolonged contact with.  Vaccinated people are,  on average,  contagious for about 5 days with delta variant even if they have no symptoms or very mild symptoms.  Unvaccinated are getting very sick,  very fast, including children who are healthy seeming then in hospital unable to breathe 24hrs after initial symptoms. (this has to do with shape of spike protein and no longer able to get in via ace2 proteins,  ace2 proliferation is correlated to testosterone production,  thus why young kids and women were not getting as large viral loads in orig virus and alpha variant.)   Delta variant is bad - and we don't have data yet on delta plus,  just genomic sequencing to see how the protein folding makes it even easier to get into cells and bypass immune response. 

~I'm not willing to play Russian roulette with any child's life just because I selfishly miss concerts exchange of energy - given the hard science data on delta, if it's all ages but unmasked, I won't go.  I applaud that all southern WI, Minneapolis,  and Chicago venues will be requiring proof of vax or negative covid test in last 48-72 hrs and that due to LiveNation embracing this policy it's becoming industry standard.  HOWEVER due to R0 and reduced time of exposure (especially indoors) I still won't attend if it's all ages and thus kids who can't be vaccinated may be present without masks for everyone regardless vaccination status and/or social distancing. I just can't do it in good conscience without feeling complicit in those deaths of innocents.....  

Now.  Dog has been on a walk, black beans are soaking before boiling to make stuffed peppers later today/tomorrow, and sheets are in the washer to do bed linens.  Time to make breakfast and coffee before moving some books and bookshelves today then heading to work/garden. Should probably shower at some point too.  But first,  brekkie and coffee! 

Omfg!  Blogger just ate a really long fucking post when I hit publish post and didn't save any of the drafts it claimed it was saving - and it also did that to me a couple days ago....  

I just want to fucking scream and chuck the damn phone across the room that makes me so angry and frustrated to lose the whole damn thing like that!!!! The last time the ui did this, after I got over being pissed at it,  I started writing it in word/memo and copy/pasting it here after I was done,  just in case.  I'm not there right now.  I'm still in the pissed off at the ui phase over what it just ate and I lost completely and irrevocably forever.  

Pissed off enough I should probably be worried I might brick my phone from my angry chi if I don't set it aside and move across the room from it immediately.... Right.  Moving across the room to finish this glass of wine, then heading to bed as I'm far too angry to read any more Maimonides right now. 

So don't take it personally if I'm feeling a big fuck off toward blogger for the next while.  It's not personal,  I'm just still pissed at their ui for what it destroyed on me.....  

 Do I like this solution to make me let him go under the premise he can then have whatever happiness he chooses for himself?  No.  Do I like making myself not look at him or anything he does so as not to be tempted?  No.  Is this whole thing more than a little self-destructive? Yes. Would I take a better way out if offered?  Yes.  Do I see a better way to navigate this given the choices other people have made?  No.  So will I keep doing that which I hate and causes me pain because it's the best answer I see for his sake to this mess?  Yes.  Is that stupid of me? Probably. But if I had a better answer,  I'd run with that instead! 

Find me a better way out and we'll try your way. But until then,  I'll keep on this path of self-denial and not letting him reach me and forcing myself to let him go.  Because I genuinely don't see a better course for me to choose here given the past choices and the mess they made and the options I seem to have open to me... 

 O, it's not that I want anyone else but Eric or even have the motivation/desire to look for anyone else. It wouldn't be fair to anyone else and for me it would just be a waste of time right now with my heart not in it. So it's not like I want or am looking anywhere else. I'm not considering anyone else or investing of my heart elsewhere.

I'm just refusing to allow me to look at anything related to Eric or his band that would make it harder on me to make me let him go to pursue the happiness he chooses for his life. And that's hard enough for me to do while not letting myself see him or be reminded of him -- it would be impossible for me if I allowed me to see him.  It's better if this isn't going to be acknowledged and healed that I just don't let me look at anything from him, that I not be reminded. That it be as if our paths hadn't crossed this life and this is just yet another life where that longing is there and no way to sate it since our lives paths aren't crossing. 

What did you think I was going to do when you chose to gaslight ignore bullying via ostracism done in your name and then chose to take active part in that form of bullying even after you were told directly that it existed and what you were doing was wrong and unfair to fans whose only guilt was being honest about truths that your sister didn't want to hear? Just because someone doesn't want to hear something doesn't make it any less true. And turning bully, getting defensive, and gaslighting people doesn't make the situation stop existing -- it only makes hard situations worse. 

I can't make the part in me that longs for him and loves him turn off -- souls don't work that way. All I can do is make me accept the difficult truths that these are the choices that he has made and that his sister and his band have no place in my life by her/their own free will choices and that therefore the kindest truest path I can take regarding him is not to let me look at him and instead force myself to let him go to pursue whatever happiness it is he's chosen for himself this life and to accept that I am no part in his choices or the happiness his choices are taking him toward. It's a bitter thing to do to my own heart -- but at least it's honest. It's the best I can do given the past and present choices made in the name of the band by first his sister then by him.

I am not yet able to see him without it causing me more pain than joy from these choices he and his sister made that brought us to this impasse. And if you're not going to address this to help to heal the poisons of her planting and his growing, then it's probably best to leave me alone rather than reopen wounds that haven't healed yet and make things worse by reminding me of how much joy/love there once was and how much hurt there is now.

What about me me has ever made you think that I would 1) lie to myself or anyone else about what happened 2) refuse to acknowledge the hard truths of other people's free will choices or 3) forget anything that I experienced that another person's choices caused pain to me? What in my nature would have led you to think that anything but honesty and communication could ever get you to a happy ending with me after what Britt did back in October of 2018?

 *sigh* Every time I open my facebook it's showing at the top of my news feed the post from Delta Rae about the pop up video version of Morning Comes. (Which I'm pretty sure I've seen before, and not in a déjà vu way, I thought they shared the full version of it at some point several years ago...Though I'm not sure if that makes sense -- I've just already read all those in the post at the same points in the video. Eidetic memory, I remember everything I see/hear/experience. But I don't remember a precise pinpoint of WHEN I saw the video -- that wasn't any part of the visual/audio replay.) And I mean don't get me wrong, I can't say it angered/upset me given it's how I discovered them and I have loved the song/video for many many years so it makes me smile -- since long before Britt imploded any relationship I could have with the band or any member of it by her blocking me on the band's official instagram account for being honest that the country music was causing me enough pain due to my synesthesia that I'd stop attending future Delta Rae shows over it and then defensively hiding what she did by refusing to even acknowledge what happened and instead gaslighting the entire situation. So it's not that I don't want to be reminded of the video, it used to always make me happy after all, it's just that at this time I don't want to be reminded of him or the things about him that made me happy.  It's much easier to try to shut down one's heart and pretend someone/something doesn't exist when you're not being reminded of its existence. And what else am I supposed to do with the mess his sister made in Oct 2018, and his refusal to acknowledge it, let alone clean it up, back in August 2019and to take active part in her bullying via ostracism and gaslighting for all of 2020 and the entire first half of 2021? She may have started things down this path, but she didn't make his choices for him or force him to take such an active role in the bullying done in the name of the entire band. Those were his choices, week after week it was his own choices. As far as I'm concerned, freely letting him go with an open hand to find the happiness he has chosen for his life with the people he has chosen to build his life around is the best thing I can do for him in this lifetime at this juncture. Which is what I remind myself, and him, every time I feel him reaching along the bond. And the best I can do to achieve me letting him go to pursue the happiness he seeks with the people actually in his life means me not letting me see him or anything that reminds me of him. Nothing that reminds me of him in this life or any past life. That's the best solution I have at this time. What else am I supposed to do with this mess of Britt's making? This decision to force myself to let go of any hope of reconnection or possibility of anything in our paths crossing in the future isn't any damn thing I want, just the best I can play with the hand I've been dealt by other people's choices....And it's something I struggle to do when I let me see him no matter how much I tell myself it's in his best interests given his choices -- so it's better if I just don't let me see him (or anything related to the band) anymore.

Aya! I can't do anything to fix this or make it stop showing up in my fb newsfeed tonight no matter how many times I refresh it, so I'll just wait it out and then go back to trying to pretend that we never found each other, reconnecting never an option in this lifetime.... For now, I'm going to go make another cuppa tea and then go back to the filing cabinets at work.

 That was the single worst production I've ever seen APT put on..... Like bad directorial choices that made incredible actresses wooden flat because knew it was bad, "bring a white shirt and leggings" , "old timey" costumes, cringey "fight" choreography scenes, I've seen better productions from elementary school summer camps and church nativity plays level of bad....  It was awful.  I genuinely have nothing good or even any constructive criticism to say about it.....  I can't currently think of any play production I've ever seen or been in that was worse than this production of Cymbeline was tonight...... 

So I'm thinking I'll take the advice from Thumper's mom. I'll just head to bed now instead of running my mouth off further.... Bonne nuit.  Sweet dreams.  

I'm actually really happy that at noon today our Madison & Dane County Health announced an indoor mask mandate order that goes into effect on Thursday at midnight and will last for a month before being considered for renewal. Back on July 29 they altered their recommendations that all indoor businesses ought to require people be masked and so at that point my work switched from "masks required for all unvaccinated visitors and appreciated for all" to "masks required for all visitors. We haven't gone back to curbside drop offs/pickups only, but we have gone back to having an in store mask mandate and that all employees (evreyone is vaccinated here) must wear masks when dealing with customers in person or going to anywhere outside the closed doors of admin/service center.  So our county (despite having a vaccination rate over 70% for the entire county and over 83% for 18+) was recommending masks for all indoor businesses to require masks but leaving it up to individual company policy until today.

The new mask mandate requires is for everyone over 2 years old, so it also applies to schools as they reopen -- so rather than kicking the question to the school districts they're just applying it to all indoor spaces where members of multiple household will be.  It doesn't actually affect me all that much personally as I'm an introvert medium bookworm artist who sets her own hours at work and spends far more time with trees and animals and flowers and ghosties and gods than living humans -- but it gives me peace of mind and I'm MORE likely to go out and run errands now that i won't feel guilty about seeing kids or people who have kids or nieces/nephews or may have contact with kids being forced into unsafe environments where they might put their kids at risk of the delta variant.

I'm actually incredibly happy about this decision at the county level where I live!

I'm sure Republican state legislators are going to have a conniption over it, especially with the state capital here. But it was the right decision that the county health board made.  And it will make it easier for me to go places other than home/work and run errands places other than a handful of places that require masks or taking my grandma to appointments (all requiring masks) and occasional picking up food to go/outdoor seating.  Even after everything prematurely opened up and concerts started returning I've not been allowing myself go to indoor places or places without proper distancing that are unmasked and allow under 12 year olds to be there -- and the only tickets I've allowed myself to buy for ANY performance are places that the venue requires all attendees wear masks. As an ethical stance. 

These are my ethics, I don't hold others to them. but I am holding myself to them.... because I don't really give a damn about society's morals or what a "majority" of people think is acceptable -- at the end of the day no matter what ANYONE else rationalizes or how collectively accepted something is, I must live with my own conscience, carry the weights upon my own soul. And for the sake of my own conscience, I cannot and will not support any place of business or artist or event that endangers children by allowing under 12 year olds to be there without requiring everyone wear masks (regardless of vaccination status.) The data on the delta variant means ANY vaccinated individual can pass it along to an unvaccinated child and so I cannot be complicit in fostering situations that increase that. There are times where community standards of a child's health/well-being matter more than the choices of the parents when the parents are making decisions that are harmful to a child's physical well-being. I consider the delta variant as a virus that is too transmissable and too deadly for the unvaccinated makinf this a time for groups and communities to hold each other accountable to protect the physical welfare of all children REGARDLESS if their parents are anti-maskers anti-vaxxers. And I will make my own personal choices based on that ethical stance.

So I'm happy that after tomorrow, my entire county will be once more under indoor mask mandate for at least the next month. it makes it easier for me to live with my own ethical choice(s) for the next month, y'know?

 On the scale from 1 to divinely protected ditziness: I thought to check for a Cubs game at Wrigley AND I knew that Packers first pre-season game is at 7pm tonight but never thought to check when/where the first pre-season Bears game is.... Yeah, it was definitely today, at Soldier Field, at noon. You know, the Soldier Field right down in Millenium Park near Chicago Art Institute.... Yeah. jacked up the weekend pricing like woah -- but we rolled in about 10:30am (opens to members at 10, general public at 11) and then got overwhelmed by the number of humans around 2ish and so went to late night Thai for mid-afternoon lunch/dinner which we ate in the car (still not allowing indoor dining there, only carryout/delivery) before heading home.   I loved getting to see the Obama portraits in person though!!! And seeing them on their national tour from the National Gallery was extra special to see them in Chicago where Barack and Michelle met and started their interwoven lives! So of all places to see them, seeing them in Chi-town was brilliant!!!

Hit a little traffic leaving Chicago til past O'Hare, but not unexpected or bad by Chi standards.  Stopped by the Belvidere-Genoa Starbucks right off the highway next to a petrol station and a Walmart, rather than the Belvidere Oasis.  Finally got to try the Kiwi-Starfruit Refresher (nearly every Starbucks is always out when I try to order it) and it was really good. It didn't really taste like kiwi or starfruit (though it had pieces of both in it) just sort of tasted like Sweet Tarts and sour green flavor. You know, "sour green" which isn't like a real apple, but sour green flavored... So if you like sweet tarts or sour green flavored things (and aren't allergic to kiwi or starfruit) you'll enjoy this refresher!

Then made it back into town with time to pick up my dog, talk to my parents a bit, drop off Crissy, water/harvest from my back planters at work before Packers kickoff at 7pm. So I'mma hang out at work with my pup til the end of the game (no internet or TV at home) and watch tonight's pre-season game. Even though I'm not wearing Packers gear (I have on one of my fav dresses that I only wear sometimes, it looks like water-color impressionist style flowers in poppy orange, olive green, turquoise on a white base with a long tie halter/belt top.  It moves really nicely too!!!  It's a summery maxi dress in autumn colors -- so I like it in late summer/early autumn harvest season -- and it's nice because I can widen the halter/top/ties to cover most of my back/shoulders if chilly OR I keep it tighter so it's mostly open back -- and I can put the back as high or low as I desire on my waist/back and wrap the ties how I want. It probably makes more sense from pictures, lol. And we just got a touchdown so I have a commercial break! WOOHOO!!!! TOUCHDOWN GREEN BAY!!!!!!!!!!

(Ignore the clear back strap on my bra that I didn't move in that last "lower open back" example. Or don't ignore it if you don't want to since it's there, lol.)

Also, even with my long arms (my height it just shy of 5'8, but my wingspan is 5'10, lol) trying to get pictures of my own back and/or my own entire body is not particulalry easy. Thus all the wonky angles and bemused ironic looks and finally laughing at myself resorting to the bathroom mirror and still having difficulties. 

But yeah, I do love this dress. It just has to be the right time of year, event, feelings about body image, and mood to wear it. It's super comfortable though -- it's not particularly restricting even with the halter/ties wrapped around multiple times before tying -- it's just flowy nice movement. But like, for sitting in the car, it's like being wrapped in a blankey toga not restrictive modern clothes like sitting that long in jeans.

P.S. 9:39pm addendum: 

Ooft this pre-season game is not going in our favor though.... 

Also though, my barette popped out when I bent over to pet the dog just now and I just started laughing as the curl beast cried, "FREEDOM!!!!"

Those with straight hair will never understand the forever battles with curly hair.... This isn't even a freshly washed floof -- I washed the main yesterday.  Honestly, you just have to laugh, no matter what the volume and curl patterns do. And sometimes, you just have to accept that their are stubborn things in this world that you have to let them be free to do as they please because attempts at control ain't gonna do jack shit except make things worse.