O wait, you didn't think that I loved Eric any less just because I've spent these last three years accepting that there's no place for me in Eric's life due to his sister's choices in the name of the entire band and his (in)actions showing that he's okay with and approves of that message/choice? Of course I love him just as deeply. Doesn't matter that I've had to fight my own desires so hard to accept the choices of others, the love is just as bright and warm and cozy for the fact he exists even if I have no way to express it. Love doesn't have to be wanted or reciprocated to exist. It just is... 

Look, as I said last post, love is one thing and relationships are something else. It's like....love is the fire and relationships are the structure. A fire without a structure to contain it is more easily put out by elements and a structure without a hearth fire is cold and uncomfortable - both of them are improved by a design for their healthy coexistence, but they're inherently different things and can be mutually exclusive.  Love is an emotion, a reaction, a joy and brightness and warmth that something exists and you're lucky enough to share existence with it in defiance of all the probabilities that you wouldn't. Relationships are long term structures of mutual interdependence of trust and faith that you earn by building over time showing all the ways you care to invest in the structure and that the foundations of the trust are solid. Love can exist without relationships and relationships can exist without love -- but the strongest and most long-term enduring have both woven together. There's joy that the other exists and gratitude you get to share the moments of this life AND there are choices and habits that create mutual trust that the joy and gratitude and caring and nurturing runs both ways. You can have love and no way to build a relationship or to invest trust because every time you do you find the trust undermined by other people's choices. Relationships require both sides put in attention and caring and meaning and build/maintain trust - a bridge needs support from both sides moving towards the center point together or it will collapse. Relationships require foundations supported from both sides if you want to get them off the ground. The love is still there, you'll still feel it's brightness and joy - you just have no way to build it into something more permanent no matter how much you wish you did. It's not love that's lacking between Eric and me, if you've ever seen the way either of us light up at the presence of the other you know that, it's the trust and most basic aspects of relationships building that's been broken and is missing. I mean, I don't even have trust or belief that I'm anything he wants in his life or that there's a place for me in his life. Where's the relationship building there if you don't even have reasons to think the other person wants a connection (of even the simplest sort) with you in their life? It's not love that his sister's choices in the name of the band broke, a deep love can't be broken that easily, it's the most fundamental basic trust of any relationship or connection that got shattered. 

Also. I'm not a particularly selfish or ego driven person this life.  I mean, I'm an old soul with past life memories and this life I'm a Libra sun Pisces rising. I can accept that there are more chances than just this one and while they won't be the same as the could bes that got destroyed, they'll be beautiful in different ways whenever I do get to have them. And then as an empath, I fundamentally require that those I love be happy and fulfilled for me to feel happy - especially in shared activities. I'm just not competitive that way. I mean, I'm competitive against myself, I'm very competitive against the best I have been or that I believe I can be. But I get nothing from competition with others to try to prove who is better - in my view anyone competitive from the ego against others is only proving they're not living up to their best self no matter how they "win" against anyone else still they "lose" against their personal best.  It's not people pleasing, it's just that if getting what I wanted happens at the expense of someone else's joy, I can't enjoy it. There's quite literally no joy for me in getting what I wanted if it means someone I care about is unhappy. I don't want the last slice of cake if me having it makes someone else upset because them being upset saps all my joy out of that slice of cake - either we split it or you go ahead take it and I'll go find something else to bring me joy because I won't enjoy it anyway even if I "won" it fairly. Even something as simple as dinner plans, people pleasing me what I want and then you not enjoying it will make it so I can't enjoy my food. I would much rather say, "you do what you want and I'll do what I want and I'll be happier knowing you got something you wanted. when there's something we both want, then we'll do it together, k?" My idea of compromise isn't that one person gives in their free will to the other if they can't agree and then neither person is happy, my idea of compromise is finding something everyone is happy with or doing separate things. You can't ever make me happy by bending your free will to mine or asking me to bend mine to yours - the only way you get to have me happy doing something together is from a place of mutual respect and trying to find something makes us both happy. So for me, accepting that someone's happiness wouldn't have a place for me in it can make me sad that that's how it is for them and wistful that there isn't another way, but I couldn't be made happy by forcing them to include me when they don't want to so I'd rather just go do my own thing where I am wanted and I am integral to the happiness of wherever I am.  For me, confrontations where I "win" at the expense of someone else's happiness are a zero sum game where I lose no matter who wins - so I'd rather not play and just let them do what makes them happy while I go do something else without them. 

Also. No matter how much I wanted something to happen a certain way, I'm never particularly wedded to my own plans because the strangest most improbable things always happen around me and also as a precog I genuinely adore happy surprises. Do you know how big a deal it is when you succeed at surprising someone who gets uncontrollable glimpses of the future and who can flip through the sands of future fatelines the same way normal people page through scrapbooks?! Sometimes I precog what my next meal is or what I'll be wearing when I'm somewhere and in a fit of stubborn contrariness refuse to give input because I cheated and already know and if I say it then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy rather than a true precog. Or worse, I'll intentionally try to choose something else and then the weirdest shit has the restaurant closed and me spilling on the alternate outfit and it can go through 4 or more iterations of this before I give in and accept the precog I tried so hard to fight to make false. It's not always fun to know what happens before everyone else does and it often means I'm reacting my shock/anger/sorrow before anyone else does. So I love to be shown that my precogs aren't infallible, that I don't see everything before it happens - I love getting to experience things in the same moment of everyone else. It's why I won't peak and have a blackout on all sports results so I can get the joy in watching. I never enjoyed watching sports until I intentionally asked for and was granted that blindspot to my precogs. It's the greatest feeling in the world to get something good that you didn't see coming when you always see so much coming! It's just this pure child-like delight at the unexpected rainbows when the light catches in the prisms and suddenly there's rainbows dancing all over the room. Sure you can work out the physics of how it happened and after the first time you know to expect it, but that first time there's just so much delight in the surprise of an unexpected beauty.... So as a precog, I get really delighted by happy surprises when they succeed and even when I glimpse the good beforehand I still get the joy of the effort and love and intention that went into the planning for the way things unfolded. 

So. For me. Yes it upsets me to accept the belief that Eric doesn't want me in his life and there's no place for me in it even as a fan of the music the band as a collective creates but it upsets me because my desires can't be realized without a mutual desire for a connection. I've been upset about that since October 28, 2018 when I first had to face it and I've been working at the stoic acceptance of it as his choice since August 31, 2019. There's no way for me to ever get what I desire if it's not something he wants....it needs to be mutually desired and mutually built or it's never going to become anything substantial or structurally sound. And so I just need to accept his choices and his actions because they're his and there's nothing for me to get of my desires. Because all my desires require a mutual connection and that we both choose to build toward each other. Without that, all my choices are only as to where else I look for connections to build and relationships to find meaning in. So if I need to accept that his choices show he doesn't desire or include space for me in his life, then I can do that because that's his free will choices. The love is still there, I still find a very intense joy that he exists and gratitude that our paths crossed but there is no connection and no relationship building between us anymore. There hasn't been since I lost all trust and faith that he desires a connection with me or cares about having a relationship with me in his life. And maybe that was a mistake and not anything he ever wanted me to try to believe, maybe all it would take is to acknowledge that a mistake was made and then make choices and actions that prove that was the error. But the acknowledgement and the choices and actions aren't mine to make are they? I only have the actions and choices of the past perpetuated into the present for me to work with at this point.... And I have to take those at face value because they're all I have representing his choices. You can't throw out data as outliers in a limited data set. Nothing's an outlier in a limited data set - outliers are only found on data sets with lots of data points and only a handful that don't align with the general data trends. My only data set parameters at this time is that his life is built around his band and I'm not welcome or wanted as even a fan of the band and that he stands behind that choice in the band's name. That's my data set since Oct 28, 2018 - and every time since August 31, 2019 he has ever gone live on the band's Instagram or used it to share stories, he has created more data points that confirm this is his choice that I be excluded from the band that his life is built around. What else was I supposed to conclude from every single action from the band toward me as a fan in the last 3.5 years and confirmed in his choices of the last 2.5 years that he has known this has existed? What other data set do I have regarding me personally in any connection with the band that his entire life is built and structured around?

So. You see. I wish for him the happiness he seeks because I love him and don't know how to wish for him anything else but that his life be full of joy in what he has in it, but I won't pretend I know what that means for him and I personally have zero expectations that he even wants me to be any part of it..... I still love him just as much as ever, but my love has never been a possessive sort of love and if a relationship with me isn't a part of the happiness he seeks for his life then I'll take my love with me and make relationships where my presence is desired and integral to the happiness of everyone involved. 

Which is why I say love isn't earned, it just is. But if you want a relationship, first there's the most basic trust that the relationship itself is something mutually desired. And that trust must be earned, especially if it was ever lost, because that's the very cornerstone foundation of anything you want to build. All the brightest warmest love in the world won't give you that cornerstone to build a relationship on if you lost it - only intention and continuously choosing in actions "this is what I want" and clear unambiguous communication can create and earn that sort of trust. Especially if it's been broken by past choices....even if they weren't your choices but your actions supported the choices that broke it, you're still the one who broke it. It's still for you to fix if you want to (re)build any sort of connection, to earn any sort of relationship that you both can lean into.

And it's not my love he ever lost or has had to earn. Not in this life or any other. My love for him has never shaken or wavered or dimmed. It's my trust and my very basic belief that he wants me in his life and that any bridge I try to build he'll be building from his side toward me to meet in the middle and build a relationship with foundations to last. And that's not something I can create out of nothing or give to me -- only his choices and his actions can give me that. But without it, what's the point in me even trying for a relationship with him this life if I'm the only one who wants it? I'll leave the love be unexpressed and unfulfilled if it's a one-sided desire this life, and I'll devote my time and energy into building relationships where it's mutually desired in this lifetime.  What else is a girl to do with all this love but nothing to build around it to share it?