Naw, I ain't any more upset with Eric or Delta Rae than I've been since I got so much more deeply hurt by him back in August 2019. That was the only time that the hurt/upset ever got deeper, ever got worse, than right from the first in October 2018 when I recognized the consequences of the choices made given the way people and things fit into his life. That first hit was brutally hard to come to terms with, because it hit me as a bolt from the blue, but August 2019 was more brutal and more painful still. Summer 2019 was when I genuinely believe in good faith that under their own management they might face and fix this to clear out the poisons that had been put into their band's ethics once they had the power to do so. The truth is it DID hurt more to give them that trust and faith in their goodness once they were in control of their own collective ethics without outside influences and to have that trust broken.  The more you break someone's faith in you, the harder it is to rebuild and the worse it hurts. And also, I'm human -- the deeper you care about a person, the greater they can hurt you even if they behave in the exact same ways as someone you don't care about much at all. I'm far more poisoned/damaged by the choices made in August 2019 and since then than by the initial acts that created the poisons that keep spreading.

I'd be lying if I were to try to claim things weren't poisoned and I wasn't hurt by my broken faith and expectations of their ethics. But I'm not more upset than I've been -- like I said I've been doing my best to work myself toward apathy since I came to the conclusion that nobody among them was going to do a damn thing to clean up the poisons no matter how much I spent pointing out the fact that they exist and are spreading because they're not getting cleaned up or given an antidote. 

My truth is that if I allow me to see him, no matter how thoroughly the poisons have filtered into everything related to the band at this point, I will feel the strength of the mutual desire for reunion stronger than I'll give a damn about the poisons that are killing all the good things that could grow. I know that about me. It's damn hard enough already to ignore that pull and keep myself from just rushing toward him like the tide pulling a boat out to sea or bringing something back to shore. In person, the desire is stronger than me caring about the poisons destroying all seeds before they can grow. I wouldn't fucking care.  I could have complete apathy to everything related to the band or anyone in it involved with this mess -- but I can't be apathetic or indifferent toward him. I'm going to light up with joy that he exists and he's here and we've found each other this life and the hall of mirrors effect of our emotions down that bond mean that the mirrored light and joy in the both of us would dazzle me so it was all I saw.

And how much fucking more would it hurt if it were our own faults and our own refusal to take accountability to clean up the messes our past choices made that poisoned and destroyed everything good that could be? It hurts bad enough when it's karma and timing and self-martyring and outside forces -- but when it's us? When it's things we know are poisonous and are there but that we weren't brave enough to face and cleanse and heal? 

It's better for both of us if it's going to be his choice to ignore those poisons, so they won't be cleaned up and faced and dealt with, that I don't let me also ignore the existence of those poisons and try to go forward as if they aren't there. Because if we can't have it be a healthy thing, if it's going to be toxic and poisoned from the start, I'd rather wait however many lifetimes until the next chance of reunion so that we can plant our seeds in ground that isn't full of poisons. Once the poisons are introduced into an environment, your choices if you don't want to be poisoning the good things before they can even grow are to clean it up apply the antidote or to walk away to plant your seeds somewhere unpoisoned so they can thrive..

If his choices are not to face this and clean it up, then there's nothing related to Delta Rae that isn't poisoned for me by this ethics issue of enforced inequality that was introduced into the collective. And that poison destroys everything it touches for me, it just does.  All injustice and systems of inequality and cruelty affect me as an ethical poison and leaving it there asking me to have anything to do with the places/things poisoned will just destroy everything good you try to grow.... If they won't take accountability and fix the wrongs they have done and continue to do in the band's name, then everything to do with the band is poisoned to me by the ethics issue of it.  

And I'll choose to deny myself the joy of reunion with him rather than trying to grow that joy in poisoned ground. Because planting good things where it will only sicken and die and be destroyed hurts far worse than never trying to grow them at this time/place.

I've not been kidding and it's not hyperbole when I have said this ethical issue affects my view of every aspect of who they claim to be as a collective. It's not an ultimatum. It's just me acknowledging an ethical poison makes me sick and I should not consume it if I have a choice in the matter.  I understand it's his family and his best friends and his passion project and his career -- and I don't ask him to choose or sacrifice those things. I know their importance to him and I've learned the hard way that he doesn't find it poisoned for him and he's not willing to acknowledge and face and clean up the poisons to make it good again. But for me it IS poisoned. And leaving it poisoned poisons everything to do with the band for me. For me, there's nothing there, nothing that brings joy to me so long as the band's esse itself is poisoned by bad ethics and defensive lack of accountability. I don't ask him to leave what has been made poisonous to me and not acknowledged or faced to cleanse it -- I just am making the choices that I must go so as to not poison myself. 

It hurts to deny myself what I want and to not even try to grow the good things that could be. It hurts a fucking lot. But if he's going to ignore rather than take accountability for cleaning up the mess of these poisons, then I don't get the luxury to also ignore it and have us try to grow food on poisoned ground because being together anywhere brings so much light and joy to us both. 

And I don't trust me to see him in person and not say, "Fuck it. I don't care how poisoned it is, I just want to be wherever he is" but I know that we can't both choose to ignore the poisons without it then being our fault not the fault of external forces for whatever tragedies grow in that ground. And external factors are outside my control, but damnit I won't let us both ignoring things within our power to fix and make better be what writes the tragic course. I just won't. 

I'll choose to leave and not see him and try to hide myself away from him and deny myself what i desire most rather than let us try to grow good things in poisoned soil. I've gotten really good these last 5 centuries at denying myself what i want for the sake of something more important.  And not having it be the fault of our own choices to ignore what's toxic and we could easily clean and heal if we'd just acknowledge it exists and to do something about it is far more important than giving in to desire and temptation in the moment. 

But not if I let me see him.I can't let me see him without cleaning up the poisons destroying the goodness that was/is/could be. 

So my first choice would be to clean up the damn mess and the poisons.  But I can't do that entirely on my own in this case, I can't remove the source of the poison on my own except by disconnecting from everything the source of the poisons touches. It needs to be dealt with at the source. So if mt first choice to clean up the mess is removed from the table (and their choices DID remove it from my options on the table) then my second choice is to not grow things in the poisoned soil nor to allow the poisons to sicken me by letting me keep taking them in. My choice if I can't heal what was made toxic is to walk away from the toxicity to go somewhere healthy. 

*shrugs* It's not what I desire, but it's my best choice I have given their choices when presented with these truths about how they have chosen to let themselves be as collective. It hurts but it doesn't upset me more than it did at any point since August 2019. If I saw him face to face without having taken care of the poisons destroying the roots of everything, it would be the same temporary forgetting and flowering as at the Chicago show in November 2019 once I let me look at him. And then I also know myself well enough to know that the moment that he was gone and I was not standing in that hall of mirrors of reflected ever brightening joy and love, I'd remember the poisons and see how they were destroying everything from the inside, right from the start and I'd start over exactly where I did shutting down and working to let him go and to avoid chances I might choose to ignore the poisons same as he has chosen to do. We don't get to both ignore the poison act as if it's not there-- that would be deadly tragic to both of us.

But I'm no more upset today when the temptation was him being right here in my city at the same time as me than when he's hundreds or thousands of miles physically distant from me. He's still not right in front of me, that mirroring isn't tempting me to also ignore the poisons let them spread instead of insisting on cleaning it up. I can make me be stoic do what I have to do (for both of our sakes) -- but not if I let me get close enough to the temptation to see him, close enough that I'd just rush right in give in to the power of what I desire even with the poisons still there spreading under the surface. 

But I'd give just about anything to be able to wrap my arms around him and just give in to that force of love and let its flow take me wherever the fuck its tides are going. Just about anything. I'll not sell our souls to have it. I'll not sell out our consciences nor burden us with the guilt of it being our own damn fault for the tragedy because we both lacked the moral courage to clean up what we know to be toxic. Neither of us deserve to carry that karma.

Mais, o mon bon dieu! How I wish I could have at least gotten to see him. Even if I didn't let me get any closer and didn't let him see me or even know I was there, I'd have loved so much just to see him and have that light of joy that he's alive and healthy and happy and we found each other against all the fucking odds. But if I let me see him and had that joy, he'd find me no matter how well hidden I thought myself -- it's the energy pull between us that is how he finds me. And I can't hide in a crowd with a bond like that -- especially if I light up with incandescent joy. Which I would letting me see him like that. I know I would, I can't help it except by keeping myself far enough away to not see him, not get that light of joy enkindled in me at sight of him. 

And. Most importantly. Whatever paths we choose to walk for what remains to each of us in this lifetime, I want so deeply for him to have whatever happiness he is seeking for himself this life and that when he finds it he have the courage to claim it for himself this life. He deserves that wish and desire and intention for him. It's the mantra I repeat inside me every time I work on my emotions to make me let him go, as much as he will allow me to let him go, so he can find out what that happiness is for him in this life.