If you feel like I'm silent here and hard to reach via the bond, you're not imagining it. It's not just the distraction of watching the Olympics or the family drama stress surrounding my grandma's health that's got me flipped my sleeping schedule staying up nights and waiting until after sunrise to sleep. It's also that... All week, I have felt the weight of the ostrakion on my conscience pressuring me that the only way for him to have what matters most to him and he has built his life around is for me to let him go and bow myself out disappear me from his options.  I can't cross the ostrakion  because of the pollution of it and knowing that, anything less than that would be selfish of me and unfair to him. That pressure, which has been getting stronger and stronger weighing upon my conscience every day as the week has progressed, is making it very hard for me to stay still and stick to the policy of moving neither closer nor further from him..... Right now, the pressure on my conscience that I have no place in his life this life makes me feel like I'll drown under the need to let him go rather than take part in something morally wrong that would lay pollution on my soul and on all I touch. If I don't keep myself distracted so I can't dwell on it, then I'll start acting on the need to let him go NOW so as not to be guilty of crossing an ostrakion that's been made.  

It's been really strong inside me that the only way to do right by him is to let him go to have in his life that which he values above all else and from which I have been ostracized by the choices of those in/representing the band. It's about all I can do sometimes to keep myself from trying to weaken/sever the bond to set him free for the sake of the life he has chosen and built for himself and in which I can now have no part. That pressure on my conscience is growing stronger and stronger -- Thursday in particular was incredibly hard on me not to just cut remaining ties and run to set him free of me. If I hadn't had to deal with taking my grandma to an appointment, I probably would have caved to the pressure. I can't promise I won't if it continues to grow heavier and heavier upon me that I am not properly respecting the ostrakion....

It's not rational, I know it's not.... though it does have its own sort of inexorable logic. It's mostly over powering instinct of ethics, specifically past life ethics and a desire to respect his free will and the happiness he seeks for himself. 

I don't know how to describe pollution if it's not a concept native to you... It's an ancient Greek thing, not a modern thing. But it's basically... Doing something you know to be wrong that breaks a taboo of what is sacrosanct. for me, free will is sacrosanct and that makes anyone under the imposition of an ostrakion taboo from crossing it as to do so is to cross the stated free will choices of those who deemed you a danger to them for whatever rationalized defensiveness they behaved that way.  there is no crossing an ostrakion so long as it exists without taking pollution on yourself. Period.  And as long as you are polluted everything you touch becomes morally polluted, it's like wiping dog shit all over your hands and then everything you touch gets covered in dog shit. That's what it feels like for me about crossing an ostrakion that has been created. I can't let him reach me nor can I reach for him so long as Liz, Britt, or the band as a collective are something he is actively interacting with for as long as the ostrakion is in place that was created in the name of the band in October 2018. To do so is like telling me I can have chocolate ckae but oinly if I wipe my hands in dog shit and then have to eat the cake with my bare hands without washing or being able to even wipe them off. That's what him reaching for me feels like right now while he's immersed in taking part in Delta Rae related activities and surrounded by the ostrakion. And I KNOW that this is also checking the box completing a stretch goal promise n the Kickstarter.... I know that. I do. But also. At a visceral soul level on my conscience, pushing the boundaries of the ostra lion to create pollution weighs heavy on my soul. And it doesn't get better unless you deal with the actual source of the issue which is the taboo and pollution of crossing ostrakion, I can't let him reach me without that revulsion and weight on my conscience so long as he's taking part in a collective from which I have been ostracized at the whim of the collective and those who represent(ed) them. 

The weight of my conscience and sense of contagion every time he reaches for me while within the group from which I am ostracized under the imposition of an ostrakion is taking all my strength simply to avoid him rather than shove him away and cut him free of me for this life. It just is. Whatever their intentions this week and their plans for a Valentine's Day live show, this is the result of it on me.  And I'm trying not to cut him out, but it's getting harder and harder for me to stick to the plan to hold still moving neither closer nor further from him... It's really hard for me not to instinctively pull away from him so long as contact with him places contagion and pollution on me for crossing the ostrakion. My compromise is not allowing myself to reach for him and avoiding all situations wherein he could reach me and cause the pollution of me crossing the ostrakion that was imposed. 

 But it's been all I can do this week not to push him away repudiate him and say, "this will never work this life now. I've known since October 2018 and every time I try to behave otherwise is denial because of my selfish desires. Farewell until another life without this mess made between us, my love. Be happy in the life you have chosen for yourself in which I am not allowed to be any part of it and I hope it brings you the happiness you seek." And I've come so very close to pulling that trigger, trying to cut him out and run, across this week.....If it were anyone but him and if that bond weren't what it is and didn't pull us together as it does, I'd have said, "Fuck it I'm done, HAGL" and stuck with it as I tried to do late 2018 and early 2019 as a result of what happened October 28, 2018 when I was blocked without warning for my honest statement that I loved the new single hands Dirty but sadly the country music was so painful to my synesthesia I wouldn't be able to see it live as long as they were playing in teh country music scene. And the date is easy for me to remember because I made the comment and was blocked with stories sitting for me to watch before letting the dogs out then suddenly the stories and the entire Delta Rae instagram account ceased to exist to me after I let the dogs back in right before I was heading to the Universalist church for the multi faith solidarity vigil following the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting. I was on my phone as it happened because I was taking care of both dogs while my parents were out of town but I was watching through stories before heading to a vigil following the most lethal anti-Semitic event to ever occur (thus far) on American soil..... So I was already in a heightened state of agitation and being persecuted by those who would ostracize and other me with no warning right when that was done by someone on the official Delta Rae Instagram account.  (As a Jewish woman, even if I don't go to synagogue and my spirituality is more influenced by my past lives than this life's bloodlines, still I know anti-semitism makes me just as dead a Jew whether or not I regularly attend synagogue. Just by virtue of me being born into a Jewish family.) so that day I was already shaken and upset when it happened so the timing was extra salt in already open wounds when I saw it happen as I was literally heading out the door..... Even with my ADHD keeping me in an almost perpetual state of flow, due to timing of it it's not a time/date I'll ever forget when and where I was when Britt (or whoever was moderating it and behaved the same way Britt did that same 24hr period on her personal account to that same truth about country music keeping me from future Delta Rae shows) hit that block button on the Delta Rae official instagram account without any warnings. The entire foundation of this particular ostrakion occurring is THAT level of fucked up mixed emotions for how/when it happened without warning or provocation and it's why every time they gaslit me bringing this up (while allowing their diehards like Mary GM to publicly victim blame me with statements like "nobody involved in Delta Rae would behave that way so you must have done something to deserve it") has marred and undermined my belief that they as a collective ever stand for any damn ethical position or social justice issue they have claimed to stand behind during their ENTIRE careers if they can stand for this sort of defensive ostracism and injustice on their collective official accounts.

I don't want my reaction to him reaching for me to be this way and it's not like he created the ostrakion. But it is whenever he's interacting/engaged in the collective that stands behind this defensiveness and inequity in their name and the ostrakion exists in the band's name as it has since October 28, 2018. And as long as it does, any time his soul touches mine while he's involved with the collective from which I am ostracized it creates pollution on my soul where it touches me and the very best I can do is minimize that pollution and the way it spreads until dealt with and cleaned up. I'm sorry. I wish it wasn't this way.... I didn't invoke the ostrakion and I can't remove it and without that, anything that is me crossing that imposed boundary is contagion and pollution on my conscience and my soul. That doesn't change just by me wishing it away or pretending it doesn't exist when the boundary isn't being enforced. It's going to be like this EVERY time he reaches for me while he does ANYTHING with the collective as long as I am under the invoked ostrakion by the collective. And putting pressure on it rather than dealing with it and cleaning up the mess is just weighing on my conscience pushing me to cut him out from reaching me and causing the pollution of me crossing the boundaries of an ostrakion..... It's not personal, it's simple cause and efect of the ostrakion having been invoked and the ostracism existing.

*sigh* It probably doesn't matter to anyone but me and all this isn't worth the time/energy of feeling it.  I really should just let him go since I can't do anything to improve this situation and nobody who could is stepping up to do a damn thing to clean up the mess.... I should just let him go this life. I really should.... I said I'd wait to find out what he wants this life, for him to tell me in his own time and way. But what is there for him to say with things as they are and nobody who can do anything about it caring to do so? Days like these recently, I doubt that he even fives a fuck about fixing things and getting another chance, because he doesn't do anything to fix what his sister broke in the name of the entire collective he's a part of, y'know?

I'm an idiot to even be bothered by this and to let him still get under my skin and not to just be done with it after all this time and all their defensiveness standing behind that decision made on October 28, 2018.....  A hopeless romantic and an idiot. And the real world isn't meant for fairy tales and I should just realpolitik it and accept the obvious truths of the way things are and the choices all of them have made and continued to make that show what they actually stand for as a collective and the sorts of values they truly believe in.... Only I promised I'd wait and hold myself still, give him time to communicate what it is he himself actually wants.... I did promise I would.... and that's on me and my promises, not about them or their ethics as a collective and what they stand for being done in their name...G-d damnit but I'm such an idiot.....It's only a few more days until the weight on my conscience once more lessens (until the next time he has a meeting with them or he chooses to go live on the band's instagram account or he's once again spending time on the other side of the ostrakion or or or.... fuckin a, but it's exhausting....Just trying to hold still and not wash my hands of him/them is made so exhausting by choices I never had any say in and which  I can't clean up the consequences they created... It's so tempting to just give in, accept defeat, and leave all of this by giving up on him. To stop fighting so fucking hard to just try to stay still. For me to accept as truth that his personal choices are shown manifest in his acceptance of by those he trusts most in this life have created and done in the name of his passion project he loves more than anything else in this life.... And in accepting that to accept, "not this life. Maybe we can try again in some future life. But it's not for this life, it's not what he chooses for himself this life.". It would be so much easier to make me accept that as bitter truth, and I'm so tired and it's so difficult now with the ostra lion and the pollution that it creates to even just reach for him along the bond right now as something even if it's not in the tangible real world..... It's so tempting to just accept these are his choices he has allowed to be made in his name for what he wants in this life of his.... I'm so tired of fighting and getting nowhere because it's only me even holding onto the hope there's somehow a victory by changing free will choices to create new/better fates instead of the inevitable defeat that was created as the only fateline consequent upon the choices of October 28, 2018.... But I'm so tired of fighting myself and fighting him and fighting cause and effect to try to keep us in a place where there's any opportunity to fix what Britt broke.... I'm so tired of fighting alone for a hope that it so often seems only I care about trying to manifest into reality. It just would be souch easier to give up and stop fighting and to let him go this life, free him of me, and accept "not this life...." I'm not going to tonight, I still have what I said I'd do. But when the ostra lion and the pollution it generates if that boundary is crossed weighs heavy on my conscience it just is so hard to remind myself why I can't give up yet, not until he tells me what it is he wants and chooses for himself.) It's very good the Olympics are now to distract me from the weight of it all and how much easier it would be to accept that I'm no part of anything he wants this life so I should just let him go.... It's much easier to make yourself hold on just a little longer if you have distractions so you're not fixating on if there's any point in your holding on and making yourself stay still to wait....)

Whatever. I'm not going to satisfactorily solve this tonight so I'm going to stop thinking about it, make a cup of tea and go back to reading this biography on Olaus Rudbeck, the Renaissance polymath who was convinced that ancient Sweden was the home of Greek Hyperboreans and also Old Uppsala was Plato's Atlantis. (I've never read his Atlantica with his evidence and proofs of his theory - in part because it's 900pgs and in part because unless there's recently been an English translation, neither my Latin nor my Swedish are good enough to understand it.) And I'll head to bed after sunrise, after he will be getting up for the day. I have no have tos with definite start time until early afternoon. 

I should probably set this back to draft.... It's not going to change anything to be honest about how I'm feeling - it never has before with him or this situation created by and in the name of everyone in Delta Rae. So what's the point? Last thing I'd want is for one of their diehards to find it and start victim blaming me for my honesty. Again. As happened every time I brought this up publicly to the band or any member of it. (Last time I even bothered trying that was back in August 2019 after they announced they were going live on their Instagram account "to celebrate with all our fans and Kickstarter backers." Yeah. All of them.... Because clearly all of them had equal access to that Instagram account.... And clearly any fan who brought up that they didn't was to be ignored by the band, victim blamed by their diehards, and see the diehards comments victim blaming liked from the official band account.....) 

In brighter news though, lots to distract me tomorrow! Tomorrow? Today? Ehrm. Sunday. At some point I need to go to Barnes & Noble to return the Chinese Myth book because I already have it (it's a generic title for, well, Chinese Myths and Legends, lol) though not as pretty a cover -- so I intend to go book shopping in the morning if there's time. (O darn, lol.) And then I have symphony ticket at Overture Hall at 2:30 (it's the Behind the Score which they do once annually in February wherein they do an informative deep dive with actors from APT into the work and composer, then after intermission they play the piece in entirety; this year it's Stravinsky's the Rites of Spring.) And then after that is back to work while watching the Super Bowl (which I intend to cheer for the Bengals, paint my nails orange and everything, because I can't believe they're there during the year of the tiger and I love a good underdog story!) And then it's the free skate for ice dance on the Olympics.  So a lot to distract me tomorrow until the wee hours or so. And if I'm distracted, I'm not going to do anything impulsively stupid, y'know?