So some things to clarify:

1) It's not that I wouldn't date anybody other than Eric or that I would say no to everyone else. It's just, I would need to do so being honest that there's a bond inside me that I would do my best to render dormant inaccessible and to focus on what I DO have in my life and the good in it but it's a bond that I can't sever and that pull will always be there. And I trust it less than i trust the way I feel when I stand gazing out across open water and the urge to go horizon chasing takes hold of me and I don't care where I go so long as I find out what's over the edge of the horizon and then over the next one and the next one forever. It's why I'm cautious how much time I let me spend by oceans because that call of the limitless horizon gets under my skin and I just want to steal a sailboat and find out even though I know logically it's only ocean and ever more ocean.  Until it's land. There are some things I only know how to fight the temptations by not letting me see/feel them -- and I would have to have good reasons to think Eric was never going to choose me be ready to choose me and/or a damn good other man who chose me and who I loved for his isness wanted to share my life path with this life for me to make the attempt. I would only ever trust me to be able to share my life with someone other than Eric by consistently choosing them and that would require of me that I make the bond as quiescent as I could for there to be trust the pull of it wouldn't be stronger than what held me to stay. And that would probably be easier with that trick the Morrigan taught me of blocking anyone with an energy attached to them from reaching me -- but only if he chose someone else. It's not that I couldn't build a different happiness with a different man, but that bond would always be there tugging at me and I don't know if that could be enough for anyone else to know it's there even if not acted upon and me doing my best to render it dormant not tugging at me all the time. And I'm not sure that qualifies as "all of this or better" in this very specific situation, y'know?

But I did mean it when I said that if David had ever made a move chosen me I would have made the attempt because he deserves that from me if he had ever found the courage to choose me. He didn't, he took another path. But for the goodness I saw/see in him I would put the bond to Eric to sleep for as long as I could hold it that way and choose to build with David as long as he wanted me because he had the courage to choose me before Eric did and he's a good man to deserve the best I have to give him of my love if I made that choice. I'm not going to go through the whole list, but David would still be at the top of it if he hadn't chosen other paths and another woman for himself during covid. (I have very strict ethics and anytime a man dates another woman, especially seriously, no matter my previous feelings about him something in me instantly marks him as someone "not for me" for me to be aro/ace with unless that's a poly situation ship and I won't make the other person jealous and it's all some light fun where I fit in. But basically, I ain't a girl who will ever knowingly Jolene another woman's man. And frankly, if a man chooses to be with anybody else instead of me, then that man doesn't want me enough to deserve me at this time. And if he makes that choice, I'm gonna need to meet the version he is after he's healed from his failed romance before I decide if he's a man I think deserves me to invest my time and love into in a future hypothetical. The moment Dave started seeing Siobhan, it was the same as when he was with Di or Maya-Nika or anytime any man I've been interested in chooses to be with another woman -- I friend zone myself and zero out all sexual interest in him beyond continuing to thinking he's hot into aro/ace "not for me" territory.) And you shouldn't imagine he's the only one who might be good enough for me to choose him this life and try to shut down the bond, especially if Eric continues down paths of choosing everyone and everything except me. At the end of the day, how long do you expect me to wait in this lifetime before getting on with building a life without you in it because you never choose to be in it? I mean, we ain't getting any younger in these bodies. None of us are. And there's been a lot of mortality within my life and the sphere of those I love over the last several years, a lot of empty places where loved ones once were and a desire to cherish those I do have while I have them and while we can choose to share time/space together in these bodies we have. How can you ask me to keep waiting and shooting down people who just want to love and be loved by me when you're not even choosing to be a tangent or a promise in my life at this point? At some point, a girl has to put her focus on what she has and what she can grow within the scope of her life path she has in this body. 

And that could mean somebody else I choose to build my life with is the "or better" the Universe means for me if you keep choosing never to show up or choosing everyone and everything except me to have in your life. I won't discard that as an option, it's just complicated for me by knowing that I can't just sever the bond and how difficult I have found to keep it dormant when I have tried so far this life for various ethical reasons. But I would try again to put it to sleep and keep it that way if I found the right other man who loved me and I could love for the goodness in him and Eric showed no signs of rapprochement or wanting me enough to actually choose me. At the end of the day, we don't incarnate to limit ourselves close off form opportunities for love and growth and healing, and if Eric can't or won't be any of those things for me this life, the Universe will send me someone (or multiple someones) who can. And I will wish him all the joy he can find and all the happiness he seeks down the life path he chooses, but I won't let his choices close off alternate paths of joy and love for me. And it wouldn't be fair to expect or ask that of me. You have my promise I will always choose you as long as you want me and choose me and I'm free from other attachments -- but Eric you gotta choose me or you'll find yourself on the outside of that clause about previous attachments one of these days... So the "or better" is there, there just isn't anybody else I know for to consider right now and I don't know even know how to phrase that "or better" at this time given my realizations I can't sever and it costs me a lot to keep the bond dormant without VERY good ethical reasons and my honesty would require acknowledging the bond is there inside of me always no matter what but if I don't act on it or let it pull me to Eric, I could build a love and life elsewhere this lifetime. For that right "or better" man and choices people make to get us to that hypothetical.

2) I do think Spock is in at least early stage of kidney issues. But he was so unwell the other day I worried it was much later stage. I don't actually know for certain how bad it is or if/when I'll be needing to make choices. Haven't even made it home yet from dinner and seeing the Beatles tribute band RAIN at Overture Hall with my parents to find out how Spock is doing. We'll see how his health trajectories continue this week and hope that the other day was an anomaly of a hairball he couldn't get out.... But I dunno.  It remains a greater than 15% possibility in my estimation that Spock might not make it past this summer if his trajectory doesn't continue on the upward and/or he gets frail again. And then I'll be back in my all black emo goth girl while in the hollow again like I was after Audrey passed.  He could also have years of life ahead of him and his kidneys could be just fine he's just been thirsty and had a hairball deep in his craw yesterday and I'm overthinking and he lives to be one those nearly 30 year old cats before he passes. But it's hard to say right now, especially if he's early enough stage for proteins not to show up in bloodwork.. I've been wearing a LOT of black, mostly black with small pop of color, since I started to be concerned about Spock's health. I did let Mikaela know he gave me a scare these last couple days -- she's 19 now but he's the first cat she ever really interacted with and knew and he's been a constant for her all her life. But he seems significantly better today and is full of life and sass again and  has been holding down food just fine. (And later update: there was a poop waiting in his box for me.) I suppose it's also possible it wasn't a hairball and he picked up COVID from a neighbor in the building -- all cats are highly susceptible to covid and someone down the hall has picked up a wicked cough over the last week or so... I've actually never tested positive or had any symptoms, not even cold symptoms, since it started even after known exposures I should have had it. Closest I had was a mild histamine overproduction in me that made my body find coconut suss and I started reacting to coconut for a while making my throat and eustachian tubes in my ears itch which would negatively affected my love of curries and I decided that wasn't happening so I would take my own histamine reduction tea until I stopped reacting to random things as suss and once that chilled I could have coconut again. And I'm actually able to drink some IPAs again so my hops allergy has chilled as well! Seriously, my tea is magic if allergies or histamine production plague you. They don't even hardly plague me but it set me back right to not find coconut suss any longer. Anyway, my point was to my knowledge I've never had COVID, but the last few times bad variants were in the condo building, Spock got super sick for a couple days. So it could be that actually given the horrendous coffee one of my neighbors (I think Tony but maybe the boyfriend or a friend of the  girl with the white pitbull that lunges at Waffles.) as long as Spock stays better, he needn't affect me going to Seattle or anywhere else -- but I need to monitor him longer before I decide what was the outliers of the data set and what his current health trajectory ACTUALLY seems to be.

There was some other things I had to say but i was busy earlier. And now I'm tired and the dog is worn out of playing so we should head home. I'll post the other things later if I remember, and if I don't remember they weren't important. But now, I need to go home and go to bed.