So Friday night, in addition to Bailen's show at Majestic at 8pm, AJ has a book signing in Evansville from 5-7p and it's a fairly short drive will plan to go early and see her say hi. She's had a lot going on so I thought it would be nice to make sure that at least someone outside of family show up because author signings often don't have anyone and that can be soul crushing. Also, I learned today that my maman decided that when John Mellencamp tickets went on BOGO sale on Friday, to pick up tickets for her and me to go on Tuesday. So there's another concert for the month, lol. (But seriously, my May and June are so empty -- I can't remember the last time I've had such a stretch of nothing in the calendar. It's almost like my calendar is keeping space open just waiting for what's MEANT to enter into my life fill it up, if that makes sense.)  

Unrelated, but this week I just realized that my solar return (aka my birthday) this year is a solar eclipse AND Rosh Hashanah starts that sundown so it's like all sorts of extra bright blinking neon lights NEW YEAR NEW BEGINNINGS NEW STORIES START NOW going on right at my birthday this year, lol. Even I can't miss signs like that about the new beginnings at my birthday this year.

But what I wanted to say is..... I didn't bring any of the last couple posts up because of... I dunno, trying to assign blame or excuses or, I dunno?.... I brought it up because something in me is sprouting up saying, "It is time to heal this. It's time to stop repeating toxic cycles and storylines we tell ourselves. It's time to heal and find healthy ways to handle this bond existing. Without denying it or each other, or any sort of running away." I recognize that healing requires both people WANTING that and trying to work toward each other and listening and learning how not to repeat the past. And I can't try to force or coerce him to want that (though i can HOPE he's in an inner place to be feeling that same sort of way and wanting to do what needs to be done for rapprochement and reunion) but I can take ownership over what inside me has been wrong-headed and needs to change and be understood and healed. And sometimes that means asking oneself hard questions and digging down through the hard answers and sometimes versions of ourselves and our behavior patterns we don't particularly like. But also it means acknowledging and accepting the past for what it was and to let yourself feel it all deep down so you can release it. And it's in that spirit of desiring to heal and (re)learn how to nurture the bond and each other that I'm examining myself and the questions I've posed myself.

I don't expect change in the everyday to bring us together to happen soon (I'd be ecstatic if it did, but I'm not expecting it) because I'm not certain how to go about it happening -- but there's work to be done to heal and help nurture that when/if it DOES happen....

I promised I'd think on things and do the work when I had the time and it's opening up again for me to have the time. (and sometimes the best thinking is to let your subconscious chew on questions set it aside for a bit and see what you find when you come back.)

That was it for now, I'm not full of many words right now (okay, not many for me, lol) -- there's a lot of love pouring in through the bond and I've been pouring a lot of love back down it again. I went to Fireside (dinner theatre in Fort Atkinson, mostly musicals; it's what you expect it to be tbh; though the food was quite good tonight) with my parents and Crissy (who had never before been to Fireside) to see Fiddler on the Roof. The fiddler, a graduate of Julliard, was fantastic and the actor who played Tevye was quite incredible in the role connected deeply to it. (He's Jewish and worked with Michigan Shakespeare, so not surprising his deep connection to the role and how good he is as an actor.) The rest was... Well... pitchy/weak vocals and not the best acting and some terrible wigs/beards/costume choices and truly it was exactly what you would expect from a small town dinner theatre in the round, lol. But there's a place of love for that growing up a theatre kid and  genuinely both the fiddler and Tevye were surprising gems amid the tinsel of the rest of the show. We'll be back there in mid or late July for Matilda (which I loved the book dearly my whole life and I love the musical they made of it so I'm excited for seeing the musical for my third time, second for Crissy and first time my parents have seen the musical) so we'll see how that goes, lol.

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Also here's this week's Astro Poets horoscopes again before I forget, still on the theme and I'm not gonna lie -- I read them and they made me go all soft "awwwww" at reading them because they're just a beautiful place of love and joy to be existing in.

"Week of 3/24 in Libra: Someone is greeting you. You are enjoying the weather and the light. And yet there are things to say. There is a flow of love. Let it flow with love."

 "Week of 3/24 in Pisces: Some delights now. There’s an enjoyment first. You must remember that is what you most want. So you find it out blissfully. So you find it out in time now."

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So now a short (probably truly short, not just short for me, I swear) anecdote from last night to end this on a sweet note, yeah?

So, I was driving home from work and I flipped radio stations because ads and I land on the last half of Ed Sheeran's Bad Habits. Okay, probably not a message from G-d or the Universe or angels trying to thwack me upside the head for being such a stubborn idiot not seeing my own happiness when it's offered up right in front of me. Okay, right, so, my bad habits lead to you. Got it. 

So right AFTER Bad Habits ends, the intro comes on of Billy Joel introducing himself and I squee with delight, "O I love this song!" (Spoiler alert: I will declare at the opening bars of pretty much every Billy Joel song ever "O I love this song!" And I have a thousand ways I say it depending on what song and how much I love it and how hard I'm fighting myself not to say it out loud, but I will do it every time EVEN WHEN I made the damn playlist and have put any given beloved Billy Joel song on repeat and have said it every single other time the repeating song is played. I can't help it, I love what I love and when the emotions overwhelm me I just can't keep it all to myself. I even squee and say it out loud every time when I am alone, other than fur babies, and I'm not saying it to anyone, just acknowledging my feels about the song. This is how I am and the sort of thing you need to expect from me and my love when it gets too much for me to contain keep to myself.) 

So then of course I can't just go home, park the car, turn the radio off during ANY Billy Joel song (well, maybe Zanzibar, I really don't have anything nice to say about that one and he plays it at every dang show) but especially not the shiny new song Turn the Lights Back On. So I decide to drive in circles around the blocks nearby in the super fine sparkly diamond dust snow falling as I'm singing along to Billy Joel. And it was beautiful and so sparkly and I realized that the lyrics were perfect for titling what I was trying to say in the last two posts and I didn't use them. 

Anyway. So then, Billy Joel ends and goes to commercial on that radio station. So I station hop to my next saved station, and no shit but it's the Christina Perri song A Thousand Years. And like, I did NOT like the Twilight series, poster child for controlling abusive relationship "you have to give up everyone you love to be with me and I'm sorry if I lose control hurt you but I can't help it" then market that to tweens as what true love looks like -- euh, no thanks! Literally every girl I know who idolized Twilight ended up in seriously abusive relationships even after I pointed out to them why even high school me could see it was problematic.... That said, much as I dislike the franchise and what it taught vulnerable girls to look for in a relationship and  never read the books, I have to admit to loving the sappy love song by Christina Perri. I just do. I mean, c'mon. "I have loved you for a thousand years, I'll love you for a thousand more" - of course I love the song and it's message. 

Anyway, the progression of songs on the radio isn't lost on me. Like, who scripted that? Just, lyrically, who scripted those three songs in a row for my drive home last night?!?! 

And the whole point of this anecdote was just to say: I went to bed with the fucking strangest mashup duet circling in my head of Turn the Lights Back On and Thousand Years. Musically it doesn't seem like it would  work at all, but my brain bridged the parts and lyrically, yeah I hear what you're saying brain. Hard to miss there. But obvious, non?

P. S. Tonight on the drive home, radio played Killer Queen by Queen then went to ads so I station hopped to Mr. Brightside by The Killers. Don't find much of a message there, though some curious, almost ai-esque repetitions association going on there.