She broke down and let me in. Made me see where I've been. Been down one time, Been down two times. I'm never going back again. You don't know what it means to win, Come down and see me again. Been down one time. Been down two times. I'm never going back again.

In sad news, I found out late morning that Cocoa was put down today (yesterday now.) Cocoa is Nathan (a co-worker) and Lindsay's dog, a long haired German Shepherd that Nathan brings in to work because the intention was to train her as a medical assist dog for his diabetes. It wasn't entirely unexpected with Cocoa, she was only barely one year old when diagnosed with lymphoma right by her heart putting pressure on it and they've been trying pretty aggressive (and expensive) chemo because she's such a young dog. But it's not been successful and after taking her in to an emergency vet due to breathing difficulties, they brought her home to put her down.  Which rather put a pall upon the day (my dog Waffles, who adored Cocoa and they were really good friends every time they were both at work, cried when I told her and refused to eat all day. She finally ate in the wee hours but she's emoting so much sadness and her eyes won't stop tearing, and she refused to eat all day. My last dog was a Pisces pup and my current dog is a Cancer pupper -- and in my experiences, water sign doggos feel a LOT, very intensely, all the time...) Which means it will feel heavy at work this week.

~*~*~*~*~

Anyway. Back to my recent posts about the rutted pattern that I'm done repeating.

 Could I be wrong in my read? Yes of course. It's possible other people care but just not enough to change the way things are or try to heal what happened. Although. I do have to question someone who talks about caring but their actions consistently and repeatedly continue to do the hurtful thing(s) without even acknowledging they did it. I mean, you can say you care about how something affects another but if you don't show by acknowledgement/apology/changed behavior than what worth is there in your words claiming to care? How can they be viewed as anything but empty air when your actions belie them? 

Do I believe that people grow and change as time passes? Yes of course I do. I fully believe the versions of themselves the girls are now are not the same as who they let themselves be back in 2018. But I don't believe in allowing someone to continuously repeat bad behaviors in the hopes that one day they will change when they never show any signs of it. The whole walk the walk don't just talk the talk idea. If you don't want to be represented by your past choices, then swallow your pride and be honest own up to what you did, fix it if it broke something and then show moving forward the new version of you that you're choosing to be. Otherwise you're just asking for a second chance grace while still engaging in the exact same behaviors that you've been doing up until the present.  How can you be given a second chance without admitting how the past got messed up and doing what you can to clean up the mess from the first chance? 

I don't LIKE trying to make myself accept that there's nothing from his side caring, but also I don't see how else to view the repeated actions and choices made in this situation. not just in the past, but ongoing continuing into the present. (And honestly into the future if nothing changes. And nothing will change if nobody cares about the injustice of it but me.) I much prefer listening to my heart and the tug on the bond and believing that it pulls equally both ways, that is much gentler and full of hope and brings me luminous joy. But none of those things it makes me feel make it true. And I have to look at who and what he chooses, who and what he has chosen across YEARS of time and even still at this time and what it says about the WAY he claims to care (or not care) about how his choices/actions affect me and include (or disclude) me from  having any welcome to what he has in the center of his life and what he chooses to create with it.

I'm not claiming I know the WHY or even the WHAT of anyone else's choices/actions/inactions in this situation, what's in their heart or what they intended can only be known by themselves or those they communicate with from a place of honesty and openness -- but I am claiming to judge the expressions via actions/inactions of what the people in this situation have shown they cared about and what value they have shown in their lived ethics regarding justice/injustice, truth/lies, and communication/ghosting. What I need to accept is the proof of lived ethics, actual choices/actions/inactions as they are manifested into reality as it IS rather than the supposed/claimed intentions.

I'm not saying there's no possibility for deeper truths or unseen intentions or for personal growth acknowledgement to heal, and I'm certainly not saying I have any fucking idea what growth Eric is working on integrating and understanding since he re-awakened the bond without me compromising my boundary about vampiric attachments. I'm just saying that going on six years is a lot of data on lived ethics and lived choices for me to still be lying to myself about the repeating patterns. And I'm not saying I think the way it has been is the only way it COULD be -- I'm saying it's the way it will always be if nobody but me gives a damn and I ask the wrong questions so I stay stuck in the dynamic instead of accepting the truths about it and releasing it if it isn't showing any signs of changing for the better. I deserve better and frankly everyone stuck in the situation the girls created deserves better. 

And if I ain't going to say "Enough is enough. It's already been too much. Find a better way or let's let this entire toxic dynamic go out of our lives." as Chiron (wounded healer) approaches conjunction with Eris (truth speaker) then when am I going to hit that "this isn't working and it isn't healthy" wall?

There are lots of better and healthier ways for these dynamics to exist, but I'm tired of being stuck in repeating these same toxic patterns and what they tell me about what Eric does and doesn't care about and does or doesn't want in his life. And if he isn't consciously choosing for himself, just letting the choices of others determine for him, well, then I guess he'll get whatever those third parties he's willing to hand his power over to will choose for him. 

But me, I'm done with being stuck in toxic circles repeating patterns. It's not a good investment of my love or energy, it's not something I should trust to invest my heart in.... No matter the bond and all the strength and beauty and love of what it COULD and SHOULD be when we use it to our best, if it isn't being put into healthy relationship patterns, then both of us deserve better than the options we've been letting ourselves stay stuck in.  If we want the good that the bond promises and holds for the both of us, then we deserve to choose to nurture it and create healthy patterns and foundations for it rather than choosing to allow toxic recurring patterns to be any part of it.

Even good things are only as good as the love and care you choose to put into how you handle them and nurture them. 

What's the point of putting in good seeds or choosing healthy seedlings to plant if you're just going to abandon them rather than care for their growth to make sure they have the right conditions to thrive into the healthiest best versions they could be? It doesn't matter how good what you had to start with if you're going to put it into a toxic environment and deprive it of what it needs so it can't thrive. If it's this true for plants and children and pets, how could you expect it to be any different for any relationship that was created around love and trust and mutual care? If you choose not to care about treating with injustice or cruelty, why would you expect the good thing to thrive and continue growing in that environment?

Thinking of which. This week's upcoming Astro Poets horoscopes for Libra and Pisces, still feels like unfolding story telling not just random like it is for the other signs:

"Week of 7/28 in Libra: You know the way. It’s clear and part of where you are. You can see the green light as much as anything. You are loved completely. You know exactly what is there for everything."

"Week of 7/28 in Pisces: You have coated the whole thing with feeling. That’s exactly as you want it. You have an opinion. You have a soul. You have it all."

 I don't know if that helped or not. I didn't write it. Neither did he. It's just a random astro blended with poetry twitter account I found many many years ago and whose email list I'm on for the full extended astro poet horoscopes. But curiously, it's one of the few things that soothed my overthinking made my heart feel better. In my heart just this feeling of, "you're not wrong, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Wait and see what changes may unfold. You don't have to reject everything for this to change for the better -- you just have to insist on needing better than it has been."

[Post Title: Lyrics to the Fleetwood Mac song Never Going Back Again.]

Morning will come and I'll do what's right. Just give me till then to give up this fight. And I will give up this fight. 'Cause I can't make you love me if you don't. You can't make your heart feel something it won't. Here in the dark, in these final hours, I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power -- But you won't, no you won't. 'Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't.

 I. Well. No. I don't think it's fair for me to unfollow Eric because of other people's actions/choices, but I also don't think it's right for him to be the focal point of my harsh feelings towards the band and the girls because of the choices the girls made in everyone's name. I don't think either of those are fair or right. And I also don't think it's fair to expect him not to do or share about things that involve the band and the girls -- that's not right to ask of him because he should be excited and proud about those things important to him. So yeah, none of these options are FAIR to him or to me, none of these are ethical -- but also what does it leave us that's possible given reality as it is? Whether I follow him or don't follow him, it remains unfair to him that he pays the consequences for the choices the girls made. 

But. And here's the thing. This is the other way of looking at it that I've only just recently seen and been grappling with.... I have spent nearly six YEARS now trying to find a way to navigate the truth of the actions the girls took, the consequences of those choices. Six YEARS. And in all that time, nobody involved with the band (including Eric who I did dm directly on Instagram about it in Aug of 2019 when I had given to their Kickstarter and still had hope that them being independent thus in charge of everything for themselves meant the social media choices made while signed in 2018 could be healed since now the choices were under their sole control) has ever responded to me bringing it to their attention or even shown that they cared about fans being blocked told they are not welcomed or included or desired to even be able to be a fan of the band any longer. Six years is a long time. And six years of trying to figure this out has gotten me no closer in a binary choice of whether or not I ethically ought to allow myself to follow Eric's personal account on Instagram thereby making him the focus point of my residual feelings about what the girls did in 2018 on the band account. 

But that's also six years of nobody in the situation caring except me about the fact that I am excluded and ostracized from even seeing anything shared to/from the band account. Six years that it has mattered to nobody but me that I'm not allowed to be included in anything the band does or creates or shares to their social media. And. It makes me think I've been asking myself the wrong question in trying to decide should I or shouldn't I follow his personal account as an ethics question. The question I OUGHT to be asking is why does this only matter to me? Why doesn't he care that I'm not allowed to be included in the fan group acceptable to the girls to sit at the table to even see what the band shares. And the answers for that I can come up with are a) he actively doesn't want me to have access there b) he doesn't care about my personal absence vs presence as a fan of what the band creates or c) he doesn't care about what the band creates so it doesn't matter to him who can see and access it. C is clearly not true based on his choices. So I'm left considering a vs b. A is a pretty active stance and is less likely than b.... But both of them lead me to the same uncomfortable conclusion -- and that conclusion is that no matter what the bond tells me or what I experience in shared dream space or how many synchronicities I see and read into things he has created/said/done it's all been me lying to myself seeing what I want to be true rather than what is, that for him it was never about me or him feeling the pull of the bond to me. Because if he cared about me at all, even just as a fan, he would care about me being ostracized from the creative center of his life being told I'm not welcome or wanted there. 

I guess there is also d) he cares more about keeping peace with his sister than about having me in his life or doing what's ethically right. But that still leads to the same conclusions as a and b as to the unimportance in his eyes of including me in his life or wanting me to be welcomed to be included supporting part of his creative life. The reason would be different, but the conclusion is the same about him not caring enough at my exclusion for it to affect his choices/actions/inactions.

You can't make someone care if they don't....but, also you should take them at their word when they have shown repeatedly, over and over and over that they don't care about something. And nothing is ever going to change as far as me being ostracized from the band Instagram account and the consequences of that if it only matters to me. Six years is a long time lying to oneself about your own importance to think it OUGHT to matter to someone else that you're not welcome or allowed to be a part of that portion of their life. Six years is a long time of him not caring about the bullying by ostracism he's a party to continuing and to take active part in the bullying of it every time he shares something posted to the band account. Six years is a long time of him not caring if he hurts me, not caring if I am welcomed or included in the core central pillars of his creative life, and not caring for injustices done in the band's name to exclude people who have been and wanted to still be long time fans. 

Six years is a long time. Six years is a long time to see no movement or change or even any reason to expect there to be change. 

I need to accept him at six years of his choices and actions and inactions. I need to accept that he doesn't care about any of this and it doesn't make any difference to him whether or not I am part of his life and whether I am allowed to be any part of the things he creates. 

Right now, that's looking to me like the right set of conclusions to the right questions I should be asking. And it's hard and it hurts and my ego takes a beating at accepting my insignificance to him. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't have the courage to face this set of truths.

Truth doesn't care your opinions or feelings about it. Truth simply is. It takes courage to face and accept truth as it is, especially hard truths, and you'll get no praise from truth by accepting it as it is. But you'll also get nowhere new until you do face the truth of  where and how you got stuck.

So. Before I even consider following or not following Eric's insta again, I need to stop lying to myself that he remembers and he must feel the bond as well with my only tangible proof being what I receive down the bond and that I want it to be true. I need to fight my own inner battle to accept his truth as shown by his choices/actions/inactions that he doesn't care whether I do or don't follow him because he doesn't care whether or not I am in his life  or whether or not I can be included as a part of anything he creates. And that hurts. It just does. No way around it. But if I should ever decide to follow him again, let it not be with me lying to myself pretense of assuming he wants me included in anything he says or does or creates. Let it not be with me assuming my own importance to someone who has shown that they don't actually care if I'm included or not.... 

Maybe I'm being too harsh in that conclusion. But if I am, show me how and why I'm wrong in it. Because I'm not seeing any other conclusion I should be drawing after six years of him not caring enough to do anything about the bullying via ostracism lack of inclusion or about his choices being an active source of hurt over being reminded I am not welcome to be a part of his life or the things he is involved in creating....

*sigh* I don't like it. I don't like anything at all about this way of looking at it. I'm chewing the inside of my left lower lip bloody thinking on it tonight. And I can't sleep since I realized this... But none of that makes it untrue, it just means it's a truth that hurts my heart. I'm going to go make a cuppa tea and read for a bit see if it can make me sleepy (Arundathi Roi's novel The God of Small Things is making Plutarch's Parallel Lives look good so I'm getting more headway made in that then finishing this novel I started because it's supposed to be quite good and I now want to be done with reading so I can read more enjoyable things) and make myself grapple with accepting the truth of his choices, or lack thereof, over six years and what it tells me about what he does and doesn't care about.... At least it's supposed to rain soon and for most of the day (most of the week actually) which will soothe the edges off the rawness of these feelings. And today I have tickets to see Matilda the musical (which I adore) with my parents and best friend at a dinner theatre place in Fort Atkinson who will do a campy probably mediocre job of it but I have loved Roald Dahl stories since I was a small child and especially Matilda and the musical always makes me smile!! And I still have lots of Olympics to get caught up on from yesterday's fencing, equestrian, judo, and soccer events I haven't even started yet not even counting the events being added today and over the next week to my personal watch lists. (Even having multiple split screen, I don't have enough hours in a day to stay caught up on even these events because the coverage is so long....and bmx, skateboarding, archery, tae kwon do, breaking, and badminton haven't even started their events yet....) That will distract and numb to help calm my hurt ego and emotions to get the adulting done before end of month and then on Fri I head to Iowa to start the time of seeing all my Irish music friends and fest season craziness starts in to get me through til Virgo season. I wonder how long Peacock will keep the replays of the events online for me to keep trying to catch up on the ones I care about....

Anyway. I don't LIKE it, but this is where my head is at as of tonight. And approaching into the six years anniversary of not caring is where I am balking. It's the point of me drawing these conclusions about the amount of time with no sign of acknowledgement let alone change and so me trying to make me take people at their word and accept bitter truths I don't like and don't want to be true but see no other way of interpreting the facts of six years of choices made and the actions/inactions those choices made real.

[Post title: lyrics to the Bonnie Raitt song I Can't Make You Love Me If You Don't]

 I am so exhausted right now.... Three days in a week with assisting elder care (taking my own grandmother to her dental cleaning on Monday as well as assisting as Special Voting Deputy in permanent care facilities)  is exhausting even when it's not all day, just a few hours. I don't know how people who do it for a career manage it and so many manage it with unflagging smiles while they have to be on. My SVD assignments this week were in memory care soooo.... yeah.... And it's hard because some of them were... not really understanding the ballot but had previously requested absentee ballots (which in Wisconsin when you are in a care facility you can request for all future elections) because while you can be deemed mentally incompetent for your own care by a doctor and you can sign over POA/POH, your three constitutional rights (such as voting) cannot be deemed too incompetent without a court order before a judge and each of the three requires a separate visit in front of a judge. Which means that even when the dementia reaches a point of not even five second recall of what you're doing, if they say they want to vote and can sign the envelope to seal their absentee ballot, the two svd officers need to vote what that voter dictates ot the best of everyone's ability without leading or telling them what to do or explaining anything beyond the legally worded verbiage (looking at you the two referendum on this August partisan primary that are the gop controlled gerrymandered state legislature trying to alter the state constitution so they only they can allocate federal and state funding without any say from any other branch of the government.) I am incredibly patient and full of smiles with the elderly and with kids and the mentally incompetent because I believe in meeting people at their own level, and so I'm good at working with the elderly and charming them to make the interactions easier (which is why I offered to help with svd for the elections and why I'm the one who most often takes my grandma to her appointments) but it's very exhausting uses up a LOT more spoons than normal having to interact with people.....

Tuesday was the hardest most exhausting for the people we were dealing with, I got back and ate something and then we made plans for Weds APT and then I just went home and slept.... For like 12 or 15 hours of sleep.... Today I'm still at work (though I did take a short nap to reset tonight) getting hours in and I need to get back to a couple of the insurance agents with the info they need because I have tomorrow and then like the first three days next week for them to try to help me and get stuff decided and signed and I'm panicking a bit over how much more time this is taking than it ought to (but some of it is my own fault because my July has been crazy busy overbooked...) 

I just have to get it done before the month ends because that's when my current insurance ends/ought to renew.... My have tos in the calendar before the month ends (other than ironing out all the everythings with my homeowners condo insurance and auto insurance) are Matilda tickets at Fireside on Sunday, and then on Aug 31 is a ridiculously pre exhausting stressful busy day in my mind/world because I have to take my grandma to an optometry appointment in the morning for laser treatment of her glaucoma (which may have some intense after care, she's done this before but it's been a while) AND that evening I have to online or postmarked my last property tax payment AND have signed my new insurance policies and I don't even know who with or how much or anything with that.... 

AND, somewhen in the first two weeks of Aug I have to go early vote for myself for the partisan primary (in Wisconsin you can early absentee vote in libraries where they setup polling places even if you didn't request by mail an absentee ballot) because for the ACTUAL election day of the primary (Aug 13) they schedule me From 6am til close (which includes shutting down the polling place and hand counting all viable write ins....) which means I won't be able to make it over to my own polling place on that day.... (I'm also pre exhausted thinking about how I said I could do that right smack in the middle of three weekends in a row of Irishfests.... Like, I'll be in Iowa Aug 2-4, then my grandma has a geriatrics appointment on 8/5, then a Gadan with Enda Scahill of WB3 playing with them house concert on Thurs Aug 8 (o, I'll be seeing them on Lion's gate Portal!) and then la Crosse Irishfest Aug 9-11, then a full day of working the polls from 6a-closing the polling place on 8/13 and THEN Milwaukee Irishfest 8/16-18.....

And somewhen in there I'm trying to fit in the Summer Olympics (haha) and catching as much as possible of all the events of interest to me..... Which is less than the winter Olympics but still a LOT of events... And then Packers pre season starts, lol. (Thankfully figure skating season doesn't start til October...)

Good news is I really don't have TIME for overthinking dwelling on anything making impulsive choices basically until Virgo season starts BUT it also means I'm ridiculously busy and preemptively stressed "ain't got time for that" unless it's something really really unequivocally uncomplicatedly good you can hand me on a silver platter to make me light up in a smile want to give you a giant hug, lol.

Leo season is always a ton of fun in my world and always involves a lot of laughter and music and hugs and whiskey with my Irish music scene friends (many of whom live far far away) but it exhausts my introvert batteries because it's everyone all at once for almost an entire month without pause and trying to fit it around still getting 40 hours of work in every week (even when on my own schedule, it's still 40 hours of working) -- so why not throw helping out old people with dementia get their absentee ballots in AND a full day of poll working right in the middle of that? 

Oy gevalt. I can rest on the other side of Leo season. Virgo season is ALWAYS a time of hermit at home recovery self care for me as the amping up excitement for harvest time and autumn and Samhain approaching.

All that said... Ring Round The Moon was a delightful soufflé of a comedy and such a joy to go see up at APT on Wednesday night!!!!! And they did such a great job with every aspect of it and it really shone as a comedy and what so many in their core company are brilliant at!

Ok. Back to working and trying to find the energy to get Jon and the other insurers what they have asked me for...

"Contrary to popular belief, time does not heal, time does not fly, time does not do anything. Time has no consciousness. It does nothing for you. The key to happiness now is what you choose to do with your time right now. Are you, right now, making the most valuable use of your time? This moment is, after all, the time of your life. Your choices are what make each moment."~Robert Holden

 I'm not saying that I am going to give up on connection and reunion with Eric this lifetime. I'm not currently/yet in that headspace, I'm just once again closer to it than I have been recently.. And I'm still doing the inner shadow work to be kinder to me and not push away good things (including the connection and love of the bond) because I'm upset with myself for not living up to my own arbitrary expectations of myself and then my inner voice is being cruel to myself.

However.

The situation created by Brittany and Liz remains unfair, and unkind, and girl bullying via ostracism. And it has created a toxic dynamic where every time Eric shares something from the band account or one of the girls he is ACTIVELY taking part in an act of bullying via ostracism EVEN THOUGH he did not create the system that made his action an act of bullying via ostracism. And it's not RIGHT for him to become the focus of my bitterness at the injustice of the girls actions/choices of these last six years anymore than it is right for me to have any desire to be part of anything involving him that crosses the boundaries the girls created by their actions. 

And that generally leads to me deciding to let him go and unfollow and give up Eric and not allowing him reach me via the bond because third parties have made it something painful/cruel when it shouldn't be. Because I would rather let him go than have him caught in the middle of him being made a bully for doing the natural things he should to share what has him excited full of pride. I don't want to be in scenarios with him caught in the middle in that way. Or making me act in unethical ways due to the injustice of the girls choices/actions and continuing defensiveness surrounding their past choices/actions that makes me uninvited and unwelcome and on the receiving end of "you can't sit with us" mean girls energy from Brittany and Liz and the band as a collective.... 

That decision and sets of actions to let him go may look the same on the outside and the consequences/effects on him may seem the same because it's me cutting ties to him as much as I can, but the motivation and the why behind it is completely different. 

Me doing it out of stoicism and cruelty to myself is unequivocally wrong and I'm working on that.

Me doing it because it's the most ethical choice I believe I have given the toxic situation the girls created and we're all now stuck within is NOT unequivocally wrong. Because consciously and willingly staying stuck in toxic modes of interaction with a bully IS unequivocally wrong and evil, it's the path that leads people to staying in abusive/controlling relationship dynamics. And both Eric and I deserve better than letting others force us down that path. At least, I know I do and I believe he does as well. And sometimes, sometimes even when it's really fucking hard, you have to accept there are people and things you are forced to leave behind in order to escape the toxic bullying dynamics so it doesn't control you.

And the ONLY thing that happened in my regard by him sharing something from Britt or Liz or the band account that showed up to me as "This content is unavailable to you" (then staying lit up around his profile image in my stories for 24 hours while only that message whenever I clicked on it) was that he reminded me of the toxic dynamic the girls created and still foster allow to exist that remains unresolved. I genuinely do not desire any relationship with either of the girls or even the band at this point -- some people look good until they show you the real bully in them as soon as they feel they have any sort of power and that is how the girls have both showed themselves to be in these interactions and defensive refusal to even acknowledge or reply to attempts to communicate and heal it. If that idea of them is wrong, then they should show me that's not who they are wanting to be because it is who they have been choosing to be for six years now..

There is nothing the girls offer that I desire in my life or even see as a positive at this point based on the choices they have made regarding me for going on six years -- and that's for them to heal if they ever want anything built on admiration of the good in them or even feeling anything positive toward them from me. But I do recognize that the two of them and the band are core central to his life as he has chosen and built it this lifetime even while they do not desire to exist to me by the act of ostracizing me not making me welcomed into his life. And I'm not going to try to force him or me to do anything we don't choose no matter how toxic third parties have constructed the options we are limited to choosing between. If he wants to spend his life with them and create things with them, he's absolutely free to do so and right to make that choice and to share about it be excited about it -- but he also needs to understand that THEY have ostracized ME told me I'm not welcome, invited, or allowed to have any part of that without transgressing their boundaries they created. So it means EVERYTHING he creates or does that involves either Brittany or Liz in it are things that I am ALREADY told I am not welcome or invited to be a part of by the others who are there.  That's not about him and it has nothing to do with the content itself or how much I ought to love it -- it's about the girls choices and actions and bullying via ostracism and their boundaries they created and maintain.

And I don't have any ways to heal the toxicity of these truths all co-existing if nobody but me cares or wants to communicate or do anything about it. My answer is to say to him, "I hope you find the happiness you seek on the path you've chosen, the path I'm not welcome or wanted on by those you are building it with. I could never wish you ill but I can not be part of this path because it's been made clear to me via ostracism I'm not welcome by them when they are any part of it. So farewell. I love you but don't reach for me again until you can do so without forcing me into toxic relationship dynamics. "

 

So even though the effects seem the same devastating denial from his perspective, the causes are very VERY different if it's something in myself I can shadow work on or something from a third person dynamic infusing toxicity into the connection where there's no reason for it to be other than they decided to create and maintain the barriers that make the toxic patterns. 

And after nearly six years, I'm just tired of the same circles, the same toxic patterns, the same old shit because of choices that Brittany and Liz made for themselves and in the name of everyone in the band and how it affects any possibility of connection between Eric and me. I'm tired of him being their messenger of injustice and bitterness and sowing pain between him and me. I'm just really tired of my emotions being held hostage in this recurring toxic pattern and mind games the girls created and have continued to maintain of making me unwelcome in all the circles and spaces where he exists and builds his life. It's bullshit and I'm so tired of the recurring toxicity of it all.... There are better investments for my heart and my energy if that's what is going to be offered by trying to build/maintain a connection to Eric, y'know?

Gah! I'm not solving this here now tonight... I'm gonna go watch tonight's John Oliver episode to distract myself get a bit more done at work before I head home. I've missed him while he was on break -- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is my favorite modern "laugh so you don't cry because you cannot close your eyes to the world burning" and at least he does make me laugh. he also reminds me that I'm not alone, not the only one seeing what I'm seeing and trying to find the humor so the reality doesn't break my sanity. Every week. Or at least, every week he has an episode.

"Release and detach from every person, every circumstance, every condition, and every situation that no longer serves a divine purpose in your life. All things have a season, and all seasons must come to an end. Choose a new season, filled with purposeful thoughts and activities."~Iyanla Vanzant

This was actually a useful video about PMLE (poly morphic light eruption) which visually is what the early form of my hive which I've seen since my 20s from excessive sunlight without sufficient sunscreen but always thought was just what normally happens in lobster level sunburns which is, well, anything more than half hour of sun exposure without or after sunscreen has worn off with me AND the several days later super itchy form which is relatively new to me looks like a lot of the images online for PMLE  -- my photosensitive hives are not quite as large and raised as solar urticaria and this year I've been pretty good about trying to minimize excessive burning time in the sun (in large part because it's been a very rainy cool summer here in Wisconsin) so last Sunday was the first time I spent many hours in the sun and thus why it was the first I got badly burned... (Also, between the photosensitive hives healing and the peeling from the sunburn, my shoulders/upper back/chest/neck look real ick right now BUT they no longer are radiating heat or super painful to all touch except the hives/blisters. I will have two weeks for the skin to heal before Iowa Irishfest which will be the next opportunity for the more easily sunburned new skin to be out in the sun for long periods of time.)  The good news I learned in the video is that the robust response of the immune system to UVA that causes the hives is correlated with reduced skin cancer which they think helps your body get rid of the DNA damaged cells before they can replicate into cancerous masses (but could also be because PMLE is so painful and itchy that it causes you to avoid excessive sunlight) which IS good news given how quickly/easily I get sunburned and my family history with my da and my grandma having multiple skin cancer types and locations across their lives. (melanoma, basal, and squamous positive removals with both of them.) I mean, I know that I have all the increased risk factors for skin cancer, including incredibly busy skin that is constantly developing new freckles/moles of both brown AND red melanin (because redhead gene) that change size/shape/color (like, I literally develop new moles every time I use my gifts, the bigger the spiritual works I do the bigger the speckle I get) AND cherry angiomas/pettichae which could turn into rarer merkel cancer AND what I call "reverse freckles" which are areas of so much scarring from the sun that they now just stay white as white can be don't even sunburn with no melanin at all. So I definitely know I should go get checked every year, but US health care being what it is, it costs so much out of pocket even with what's considered really great insurance for the biopsies to check everything that is questionable and so far mine were always negative biopsies -- when I get closer to 50 is when I really need to start being more proactive assiduous about all the funny stars on my skin based on my family history for those of us with the fair easily burning busy skin, lol. But, there's some mild relief in learning that PMLE is associated with reduced skin cancer risks. (Though it's also related to certain auto-immune diseases, which different ones run on both sides of my family and when I got screened for them in college due to some major fatigue issues, i was told the only way for false negatives was if you happened to have both which is rare which was meant as reassuring until I said, "but we literally just checked for both of them since one runs on my mum's side and the other on my da's side -- my chances of having both are higher than most of the population...." Not that they do much but treat the symptoms for any of the ones of concern for me -- lupus down my mum's side and some blood clotting related ones down my da's side. Also, lupus flareups can cause PMLE as well as migraines and fatigue but so can Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome which I DEFINITELY have all the classic signs of having including all the random things I used to go see doctor's about which they never did solve and now I just live with -- I went down that rabbit hole of the PMLE lupus connection the times I've recognized in the past that I was having hives not just sunburned skin after being in the sun for too long. 

After sleeping, most of the hives are gone except the worst of them and the only itchiness is the normal "skin is peeling after a second degree sunburn" itch. So it's at least healing up and nothing's infected or even really all that delicate or painful or leperous looking like it was. But the fact there's a non zero possibility of this just being my new normal every year after exposure to sun still sucks. Still don't recommend.

I should say about the six year old issue with the girls of Delta Rae and how they chose to use the band account and their personal accounts for bullying via ostracism rather than inclusion -- I don't wish them ill any more than I wish them well. I strive to respect their choices/boundaries as their own to make so I strive to sit in a place of wishing them nothing at all. I remain completely baffled by it, it doesn't make any SENSE to block a long time fan then refuse to communicate or deal with it and to alienate other longtime fans over it as well (to the extent that Mikaela who had them as her favorite music starting when she was five years old considers them completely dead to her and won't allow any listening to their music has left stores if their music comes on now) and that I am not the only former fan they did this to.  I was hurt by the injustice of it in the past and while it no longer hurts, there's still bitterness that comes up when I'm reminded of the block because it's unfair and unjust and I dislike seeing anyone get away with injustice. I also don't FEEL ethically right with my own conscience if I am knowingly being the asshole to try to cross someone else's boundaries -- boundaries are like religious taboos, they don't have to make sense to anyone outside the one who believes in them but they still deserve to be respected as something that individual thinks would harm them if crossed. It's nothing I want, it's entirely an ethics issue for me that I can't allow to exist to me or for me to care about anything that involves the girls or the band as a collective as long as their boundaries exist and are maintained that they created in 2018. 

 

There's a very very grey messy area that I struggle with which is how to be fair to myself and Eric in light of these choices made by Brittany and Liz given their connection to him and his part as a member of the band and what is done in his name and what happens of him taking an active role of bullying EVERY time he shares anything from his own band's account -- a thing he should be able to do freely and with a clear conscience open heart from a place of love and pride. I have the same grey area with the other guys in the band who have never bullied me or been a part of the acts of injustice and exclusion in the bands name other than the passive acts of allowing it to continue. (This is akin to white southerners who didn't LIKE Jim Crow or actively take part in creating the laws of the system but allowed the system to continue to be what they lived under because they either felt powerless to undo it once it was done or blinded themselves to the injustice inherent in allowing the system to continue.) It's even more difficult with Eric given the bond across lifetimes and that pulls between us even now and my own heart's stake in fighting me every time I try to give him up and give up the connection as the kindest best thing I can do by him for him to have in his life what matters most to him.... And I don't know how to square the circle to do right by everyone involved here. I fully admit that. I just don't know how. 

In nearly six years of wrestling with this truth, I've tried all different things, but I don't know what is most fair and just and causes the least harm in this situation created by the actions and choices of Brittany and Liz nearly six years ago.  The cleanest and most obvious approach, and the one most people would do, is the one I have tried of taking them at their word and stopping to try to talk about this to fix it and just letting them not exist and anything they're involved in not to exist to me -- but that's HARD when it comes to Eric and the bond there and how it pulls and to know he is being punished for choices and actions that were never his nor were they mine but were created by a third party. I've tried to treat the girls' choices/actions as not having created a "you can't sit with us" false dichotomy of us vs them, but then I run into disrespecting their boundaries which even if I think them wrong and unjust and cowardly and defensive doesn't give me the right to disrespect them because boundaries aren't about the feelings of anyone outside the boundary they're about the feelings of the person who put them up. And sometimes I deal with it by trying to entirely push Eric away from reaching me in any fashion recognizing that he is the one paying for it but that if he gives up on me lets me go then he won't have this conflict within people and things that are core central to his life as he has built it. That choice always wounds me deeply enough to send me into the hollows where I get very ruthlessly stoic don't feel anything about anything, same as how I mourn deaths of those I love, and the only way I end up coming out of that is when he fights his ass off to reach me despite everything and I come back to accepting that rejecting him because of Brittany and Liz's choices and actions isn't fair to him or to me. But neither is it fair having him caught in the middle of their boundaries/choices and the consequences of them so he's always being hurt no matter what I try to do to minimize the hurt to him.... 

I don't HAVE a path forward where he and I aren't the ones hurt paying the price for the choices and consequences of Brittany and Liz's actions since 2018. All the paths with that barrier/boundaries as part of the mix are unfair to him and me, all the choices are paths of pain and injustice to him and me, and all of them make it impossible for me to be included or invited to join in joy for his success and the beautiful things he's trying to create with his life when he created them with those whose boundary requires they not exist to me -- and I can't find any path that is different except paths without that false barrier the girls created in 2018 blocking everything... The least complicated I can choose given the reality of the barrier existing is to focus on the ordinary everyday try to live my life without him in it and to encourage him to live his without me in it and without acknowledging the bond pulling us toward each other -- and that's a desert path devoid of things both our souls need to be their brightest most flourishing creative healthy selves. In the past that's always been a path that leads to where I'm in the hollows where nothing feels like much of anything and where he sits in nihilism and creative blocks without the ebb and flow of the bond. but I don't see a way through without acknowledging and clearing up the barrier against me being welcome and included in his life that the girls created by their choices in 2018. Do you?

I don't lightly sit in the place of trying to make things I was excited about and loved dearly and know would bring me great joy/delight to no longer exist to me, it's just the best, most ethical, path I can find in light of the choices made by the girls and the boundaries they created and have maintained for the band as a collective and for themselves. Removing that barrier would remove me blocking myself from allowing good things I love to exist in my life and to be celebrated for their existence -- but every time I tried to bring it up and do just that I was ghosted and met with silence and a refusal to even acknowledge it exists or what the girls did in the past. So it's not a barrier I can remove from where I am... it's only a barrier I can respect or disrespect but unless someones else can find a way to remove it, it's going to be there and a source of friction between any connection either Eric or I try to build with each other. Ignoring it or ghosting it won't do anything but leave it exactly where it is.

What else do you want me to do? Unblock myself? Remove the barrier that I didn't create and I can't access the account to remove it? Keep trying to square the circle of being in his life while ostracized and unwelcome to even exist as regards his band, his sister, and one of his best friends?

It doesn't matter how much shadow work I do to try to stop myself from rejecting his love when I get upset with myself if I'm also being pushed and reminded I should reject him because I'm not welcome to be in his life by core central pillars of his life as he has built it. Especially when he allows that unwelcome not including bullying by ostracism injustice to be perpetrated and repeated by him in his choices and what he does/shares. Either way I'm grappling with making myself let him go and he's dealing with me pushing him away not letting him reach me down the bond -- whether it's internally mediated by me being cruel to myself or externally mediated rejection of me being any part of his life. Like, consequences are the same either way, y'know? Either way, it ends with me refusing to allow either of us to get the strength and love in the bond that heals us and allows for soul growth flourishing. I can do something about shadow work on the first one to mitigate it to not be what's keeping us separated but I can't seem to do anything about the barrier of the second one, especially since bringing it up just gets ignored and ghosted rather than opening communication about it. 

I dunno, maybe it's all moot. Maybe he has found yet another girlfriend distraction he thinks might be the one and that's why he did what he did knowing how I would react because nothing has changed as far as me being blocked on those accounts he shared from. I don't have the energy or patience to let him keep the bond if he dates someone else again and mistakes the bond for the in lust emotions someone else raises in him -- I'll just put the bond to sleep again block it off if he wants to play that game yet again. This nexus of time/space is too difficult to navigate as is with all the fatelines shifting for the entire world for me to also be juggling the will he won't he of Eric's personal choices shifting my fatelines. If he wants someone else, yet again, I'll take him at his word and just dam up cut off all access to the bond for him and leave it that way -- there is far too much else that is shifting and moving for me to play that game from him yet again....

I dunno. Somehow it's already 5pm... I need to see how much rain we get to figure out if I need to water stuff this evening before I head over to check on Henry (Crissy's cat) again. 

P.S. O this thunderstorm turned into a downpour... Don't have to worry about watering things now... But I'll still wait til the rain is less torrential before going to check on Henry and coming back.

P.P.S. This is this week's Astro Poets, so even if I'm sitting in the headspace of "I don't see any ethical path I can choose without causing him pain and forcing separation due to the choices and barriers third parties that are tied to him and his life have created to make me unwelcome in his life" the unfolding dialogue and story in just those two signs poetry horoscopes continues: 

"Week of 7/21 in Libra: A sweet pink that is everywhere. You can sense the parts that are part of time. Almost like a notion of something. You are full of love. Love will follow you everywhere."

"Week of 7/21 in Pisces: You make a tune and turn. You sing it. Because why not you say in green. A final part of emotion. You hold it and why not."

 I'm currently playing the, "Are these just sun poisoning blisters from the second degree sunburn or have I developed solar urticaria again?" (Solar urticaria is a form of allergic reaction to the sun. Solar urticaria is hives after exposure to the sun whereas PLME (unless it's due to lupus) is generally only early in the Spring or if fair skinned people susceptible to it go to tropical islands in the summertime.  Both of them can be a once or twice thing OR can happen repeatedly. More importantly, while anyone can get solar urticaria hives, it's generally found in biologically women once they're over 35. especially fair skinned women.) More crucially for me, yesterday even though I was wearing a cotton crewneck tee, I was getting needle prick sunburned through my tee shirt where I was already sunburned just on the walk from my car to the municipal building and back (I actually put a thick cardigan on while at my svd training and left it on even though it was nearly 80 outside because the sun through my t shirt on the burns was so painful. (why don't I wear sun shirts if my skin is so sensitive and fair easily burned? Well, because I also have VERY sensitive skin and petroleum based fibers can cause me to break out in hives from the fabrics -- so if I have to choose sun hives vs fabric hives, I'd rather get hives from and burns from the sun because that doesn't itch and scratch across the skin. I'm also allergic to most petroleum jellies.)  Today the peeling on the main sunburn (still generating heat to the touch) and I had horrible horrible hives/blisters everywhere that the sun hurt abominably through the tee shirt like being stabbed and started itching almost immediately. This morning I woke up with unbearable fireant bite pain and itching and hives/blisters all over my upper back/shoulders/neck and so I wore a scoop neck tee to reduce the touch causing itching but in addition to a long sleeve cardigan put on a cotton scarf round many layers over my neck/chest to protect it from the sun while I was watering my outdoor plants. As you can see it mostly does the job to cover the photosensitive skin area from sun while causing the least contact pain/extra itchiness from a fabric that causes hives OR the friction of any fabric against the hives like areas.... 

 

BUT anywhere that the scarf slipped or showed skin, any sunlight on it hurt abominably and started itching like a mofo with sun exposure and the hives/blisters got worse after sun exposure. I've also had the Hell's itch reaction to sunburns before and that's where I was at on Tuesday or so when the itching healing starting -- this is a VERY different hives like itch not the healing damaged tissue deep flesh itchiness... (I also get the Hell's itch from regular heat burns blisters and fractured bones and deep cuts that need stitches... It's about the 48-72 hour stage of healing after an injury...)  These red hives that cause a spreading burning itch when touched by anything are more like itchy Eustachian tubes allergy reaction and is a different sort of itch than itching deep down under the skin deep tissue or in the bone itching.... I also break out into incredibly painful unbearable blisters from iron rich water (like in the Rocky Mountains) as we have discovered whenever I visit the Montana cabin. The standing joke is that it's my fae nature showing that I can't handle iron on my skin even in water -- the scientific answer is that there's an iron feeding bacteria in iron rich mountain waters that less than .01% of the world population has a dermatitis blistering reaction to when they encounter it... Nobody else in my family had it, it's a just me thing.  I had to spend the rest of the trip using bottled water for everything even just to wash my hands... But while the blistering from iron rich waters makes me sound like a fae being, breaking out in hives as well sunburns and blisters from the sun makes me sound like an immortal vampire, lol. Imagine being a vampire who actually needs glasses/contacts to see, that would be such an annoying thing to have to deal with for eternity because like you'd heal up after LASIK without a scar but the cornea would have grown back....

I lean more toward hives because it FEELS like when I get hives from petroleum derived products but WAY worse and sun blisters tend to hurt to the touch like any other blister hurts and I have some of those but the hive like areas get painfully itchy when  brushed even lightly by soft cotton or my own skin... 

That wall behind me is white -- my phone camera tried to fix the redness of all my skin trying to get pictures of my sunburns by shifting the entire white balnce more blue

It's definitely NOT my favorite and going out for even just short sun exposure hurts like a mofo... So I haven't been gardening or taking the dog on walks at all because even though the temps are cooler (under 8-F) even a short 10 second sun epxosure is painful and causes me to break out into itchiness and more red spots...

I'm not going to go into a dermatologist, because by the time they could see me, this one will be healed and it would have to be a different sunburn or photosensitivity. (And before you ask, I don't have any medications that would cause photosensitivity; I'm not actually on any medications at this time and only take acetametophin/ibruprofen as needed for headaches. And recreationally only caffeine to self regulate the ADHD and alcohol socially(pot makes me absolutely starving in a way that the hunger mechanism never turns off, and I can eat until I throw up and still feel famished starving and repeat that cycle many times with no relief with that state lasts for 12-36 hours for me that I just can't turn off the hunger mechanism; it doesn't matter what strain I've tried; I've met a handful of people who have experienced this on certain strains they've learned to avoid and when I tell them that's how I am on ALL strains and even second hand makes me hungry but not starving for about 6 hours straight their eyes get wide and they're like, "yeah, that wa sa miserable time to be a bottomless hunger so this is not the drug for you then" I enjoy spending time with other people when they're high on pot, I just do NOT enjoy the Kali like bottomless endless hunger mode for me...) And due to the severity of the sunburn, I haven't been in the garden or having any plants brush those sunburned photosensitive areas AND I don't have the hives anywhere else on me or a heat rash style hives anywhere but where the sun exposure happened.... So unless it's a soap or hair product or maybe my 97.7% pure clean fragrance free aloe gel causing a photosensitive reaction, there's nothing I can fathom for it other than the solar urticaria hives are now an all the time histamine reaction for me after over exposure to too much sun... If it is, that's going to make Irish season fun..... 

So I will be spending most of the weekend inside (mostly at home other than checking on Henry and working) until the rains return on Sunday to best avoid the sun bringing on any further/renewed/new photosensitive hives and to try to heal up whatever it is.... and hoping it doesn't happen again over my three weekends in a row of outdoor Irishfests (La Cross is at least under a tent) once it's August. Luckily, this week I'm super busy (which is NOT conducive to trying to talk on the phone to insurance agents during their regular hours) because I have three days of SVD (Special Voting Deputies, go to permanent care facilities to assist like a polling place for absentee voting of residents and then courriers the sealed absentee envelopes to the clerk's office til election day delivery to the proper wards) assignments on Mon, Tues, and Thurs (which means to dress conservatively but not politically because elderly) as well as my grandma having an appointment on Monday AND a big group at APT on Weds for Ring Round the Moon (which will be outdoors for the late afternoon/evening and I may decide to put on long sleeves and a big hat not just a crew neck to protect the currently bad areas... On verra... But also, it means that due to driving and the plans/assignments/appointments, my daytime "I can answer a phone call" time excludes 8a-5p on Mon, 10a-3p on Tues, 2p onward on Weds, and 11a-3p

But yeah, these sun sensitive hives on top of the sunburn peeling skin and deep tissue blisters AND continuing heat release in the burns is awful... Not even one of the worst burns I've ever had, but a ridiculously awful reaction to it....

Blech! No bueno... Do not recommend. Hives reaction to the sun is miserable.... I really hope this doesn't become a new normal reaction... I'm over on hours and I'll start in tomorrow and Sunday for next week being so busy -- now I think I'm heading home to change into no bra and soft pjs that don't touch anywhere I'm burned/peeling/blistered/hives... My current PJ top this week is a super soft cotton "one size fits all" scoop neck tee with no tags on it from Aoife O'Donovon's tour for Fossils album -- in me it's super baggy and the wide scoop falls down off both shoulders and regularly dips low enough to flash everyone around if my arms are just down at my side or if I sit down certain ways. So I love it but it's an at home where nobody sees me but the animals only pyjama top tee once I got it home to try on -- but perfect for times like this where I can't bear to have anything touch my upper back or shoulders or chest. To read and drink tea and relax if the infernal itchiness chills its shit. Ooh, maybe I'll make me a cuppa my histamine relief tea I concocted for my family/friends who get bad seasonal allergies and lung issues with run away histamine reaction since they got COVID. Medical antihistamines bind to and block the body's receptors for histamine, my tea uses plants that have naturally occuring enzymes that break down histamine molecules. So they are complementary but not the same -- and neither tell your body "hey that's enough histamine please, chill your shit on the production line.". I'll see if drinking some tea to destroy excess histamine in my system will help with the itchy burning photosensitive hives/blisters reaction on the worst part of the sunburn. If histamine relief tea helps, it will mean this is sun allergy territory not just second degree sunburns territory.... Also, even without having excess histamine productions/reactions, my histamine relief tea is just damn tasty. 

I am floating in deep water, Like the unfamiliar otter, In love with someone's daughter, I'm going to lose. float. And I know that I love her, For the stars and all they cover, Have told me of no other, Quite like her. Hope you don't mind, love, But I wrote you a song. Standin' in time, love, I hope you'll sing along. And I don't understand, How it all began. And I don't understand, How it'll end. How will it end? Will it end?

 I enjoyed Moulin Rouge very much last night -- the cast, orchestra, and ensemble were fantastic. Particularly the ensemble. As a former dancer, I have a lot of opinions about the ensemble generally, but this ensemble was fantastic! All the dancers hit their marks, the choreography was superb, and every single member had great extension and turn out. It was very much a visual spectacular and the dancers were fantastic!! They did a good job with their renditions of the pop songs as the musical numbers, but it seemed a pity they didn't use much from the film other than the names. The book was poorly written, but I expected that. But visually it was stunning and the ensemble were incredible. As was the actor who played Christian (whose name happened to also be Christian) -- he was one of the best vocalists I've heard in a long while on a touring production!!!! 

My sunburn is more healed than Crissy's when she came over for cocktails on Tues and again for dinner/musical theatre on Weds (even though my initial burn was worse) BUT I heal fast and intentionally went stood in the pouring rain to cool it the evening I first got it AND then continuously put aloe on it to cool/soothe/heal/keep moisturized AND then slept 15 hours Sun into Monday and another 12 hours Mon into Tuesday and my body shuts me down into sleep mode when it needs to heal. Crissy didn't put anything on her burn and wasn't sleeping enough due to work and family stressors. Mine is still painful to the touch and radiating heat but as of yesterday the itching started and it's abominable and I want to scratch my back horribly but the pain is still too raw to touch it. It's a very annoying stage of sunburn tbh.... From past sunburns, the itching is only going to get worse and the peeling will start before the weekend, lol.

Today I need to try to make phone calls back to insurance people to get quotes (seriously only progressive actually lets you build it in the site for quick compare, the others require a lot of phone calls -- it's making me tempted to choose Progressive because it's less hassle) and I'm very tired of my inbox, texts, and phone blowing up from different insurance companies wanting to selle policies without actually getting me the policy to look at before I agree. 

I only have the morning today to make calls though because I need to be back downtown at county clerk's office by 1:30 for in person special voting deputy training. The Spring was pretty casual, but already for the fall partisan primary (which has two important referendum on it) they're ramping up training on harassment and de escalation and when to call police if election workers are threatened. Also, my shift in August for the proper election day for fall partisan primary (which is the Tuesday between La Crosse and Milwaukee Irish fest) is 6am til close (meaning checking all ballots over for write ins after doing all the absentee and fwad ballot and packing everything up) and I'm preemptively exhausted with that timing. It also means I need to vote absentee or early to make that shift work. 

Also. I unfollowed Eric on insta this morning. Earlier this week either Mon or Tues, but I saw it on Tues, he had like four stories and his last story of the day claimed "this story is unavailable for you" meaning he has shared something from Britt, Liz, or the band (all of whom blocked me back in 2018 for me stating that I loved the new song but most of the country music between sets and as openers at shows was painful enough to my synesthesia that as long as that was part of the experience I wouldn't be able to attend future shows to hear them live AND ever since being blocked for that honesty they have been defensively unwilling to discuss or make right that choice they made.) Then he kept showing up at the top of my feed with a story to watch but any time I clicked on it got the black screen with white text "this story is unavailable to you" message. Which annoyed me greatly and made me push him away internally and sit in the internal mental place of, "your sister wishes not to exist to me -- that means that to respect her chosen and enforced boundary, when you work with her or share things from her, you no longer exist to me. It's your sister's boundary she created, take it up with her if you don't like it." (It very negatively impacted my formerly good opinion of his sister and since she has taken no actions except defensiveness and ghosting in the last six years to choose differently, she has only continued her behaviors as someone who engaged in mean girl bullying behaviors of us vs them injustice. It has colored for me all her talk about standing up against injustice by engaging in dialogue look like hypocrisy if she was going to engage in identical behaviors of ostracism and refusing to acknowledge her us vs them acts of injustice created by herself when she is given even the small amount of power of having admin rights on a band's social media account. You don't have solid ethics or ideals if you sell them out engage in what you deride others for doing the moment you have the opportunity to exercise any power over others. You're just another white hypocrite claiming you believe in something for social cred but never walking the walk or talking the talk to act upon those ideals in your real life choices.) More than the content itself, it's the bitterness of being reminded of the ongoing injustice of how she chose to handle it and him perpetuating the bullying of his sister's choices/actions that is the problem. It could have been the most adorable picture possible that he shared, but because it came up with the bullying via ostracism injustice of "this content is unavailable to you" so I never even saw the content just the automated you can't sit with us message all it did was sow seeds of bitterness over the arbitrary unfairness, injustice, and bullying of his sister's behavior patterns in 2018 and the choices/actions to continue defensively ghosting standing behind the past choices rather than at least acknowledging it or doing something to make things right. It's also why I set this to private then took a few days break from social media and writing my feelings/thoughts out here to keep me from working myself up into a mood where I would react from the bitterness of Brittany's past/ongoing choices and the consequences of them other people must pay for rather than balanced consideration of what I wanted. Then this morning (I didn't check my social media after getting home, just got ready for bed and read a little before sleeping early because tired) there was another story from him with the same message and I couldn't clear it out of my stories -- and since I didn't want the bitterness all day over having that reminder of the unfairness of how the girls treated me and have dealt with that in the band's name as a collective, I just decided to unfollow Eric and to impose on myself the same thing I had told him down the bond, "Your sister has chosen to not want to exist to me and to insist on that boundary for herself and in the name of the entire band as a collective. This means that ANYTHING you create or do that involves her and/or the band does not exist to me either, by her choices and actions. It means that while you're working with her creatively, you can't exist to me to comply with the boundary she created and keeps in place." 

And yes, this means that as a lifelong theatre loving witch, so the main audience primed to love and buy everything related to the musical, I have absolutely zero interest and intend to never see their southern gothic musical about a witch trial that finds a real witch BECAUSE it involves Britt and Brittany's choices and actions for herself and on the band's Instagram account. Because she chose to be a bitch to me and even if it was a bad day she made that choice, she got defensive doubled down every time I tried to bring it up and clear the air heal things. So as far as I am concerned, there is nothing that involves Britt or Liz or the band as a whole that exists for me to respect the boundary of their creation and their enforcement, and there is no healing or fixing it for Brittany or anything involving her to exist to me unless/until she chooses to own up to it and heal what she broke.

For me, it's very simple and straightforward and there's no shifting it without addressing and healing the root cause of the problem that she wishes not to exist to me. That's he boundary, her business, and I will respect it as her boundary even if I do not understand it and I will do my best to ensure that she does not exist to me. But there are consequences. Anything, and I do mean ANYTHING he creates or does that involves his sister or Liz ceases immediately to be of interest to me or even exist to me because they don't wish to exist to me. Solo album? Delighted excitement for the promise of new music from you!!! Involving either of the girls or the band in the recordings? I guess those songs aren't for me then, I hope other people will love what you recorded.... Solo shows? Brilliant -- love your songwriting, tour performances everything about it!! Liz or Britt guesting in the solo show -- show doesn't exist to me because they don't wish to exist to me and so I feel nothing now about your solo shows. Writing and staging a musical about trying to burn a real witch? Absolutely fantastic and I'm so impatiently excited to hear it -- I love musical theatre, I love witches and all things witchy, I love a good heroine/villainess redemption/revenge arc!!! Your sister helped write the songs and is part of the staging process of said witchy musical? The musical no longer exists to me no matter how it turns out or who else you get involved in the process and performance because one of the central creators wishes not to exist to me, so this is of no interest to me. 

Be careful what you ask for because you will receive precisely that and all the consequences. Because of the choices and boundaries created and maintained by Brittany and Liz for themselves personally and in the name of the band as a collective, there is nothing you can do or create that involves them that will be of interest to me or even exist to me for as long as they maintain their boundary of not wishing to exist to me. It's quite literally that straightforward, and only their personal free will choices to choose healing instead of ostracism can alter those consequences. Ever in this life.  

The moment you involve either of them, for as long as they desire not to exist to me, it becomes a non starter and is of no interest to me because I will treat it as not existing to me per their choices and boundaries of their creation and maintenance. Not my own feelings about you or the project nor the content nor the quality no how much everything about it should be something I love will matter in this situation -- the ONLY thing that will count is that you are working with someone whose personally chosen boundary is to wish not to exist to me and I will respect that boundary even if I dislike it and don't understand it. Boundaries are the sole property of the person who made it and their feelings, not about whether the person they applied it to or any of the consequences of that boundary affect or hurt other people. 

I don't like it so I don't ask you to like it, but I do ask you to understand that boundaries are 100% about the person who created them and their triggers and what they like so neither your dislike nor mine matter in this case since the boundaries are not of our making. But I need you to understand that everything you create with Brittany or Liz and every time you share something originating from one of those three accounts that the girls decided to block me on in 2018, you do NOT make me desire to know what the content is or to want a relationship with the girls or the band as a collective. What you do is to remind me which side of the boundary created by their ostracism you are on and that one of the consequences of the girls choosing ostracism for themselves and the band as a collective is that I need to accept letting you go because what you are involved in doesn't exist to me due to the girls' boundaries they created and maintain. All Eric told me by sharing those posts is he made his free will choice which side of the ostracism boundary his sister created he is on and I need to make me accept that and have nothing to do with him. Whatever his intention, that is the only way I can understand it when all I can see of the story is the black screen with white lettering "This content is unavailable to you" and the reminder of EXACTLY what that means and that he was sharing something from one of those three sources. As far as I'm concerned, that was all he did by sharing those stories, whatever they were, and I accept his choices and his truth and the consequences thereof so I will let him go not be in my life so he can build his life with those who have chosen not to exist to me.  If you don't like the consequences or if they want to exist to me to be involved in things that exist to me I can care about, take up with Brittany and Liz their blocking me ostracizing me on the band account and their personal accounts and telling them to reassess their choices and boundaries to fix it. Because neither you nor I can do that for them, this mess is 100% of their making and their continuing. Until then, it's their chosen boundaries so nothing they do or create or become involved in exists to me in order for me to be able to respect that boundary of THEIR creation and maintenance. That straightforward and that immovable without their choosing to move it.

And that includes Eric since he's working with her again this week and sharing things from her and/or the band account again. And I ain't got time or energy emotional capacity right now to play the bullying mind games created by other people's choices -- if you want to play stupid games to win stupid prizes. Fine, go for it -- but count me out. I want nothing to do with anyone who will condone or take part in that sort of behavior. It's not adding anything positive to my life by allowing that in to destabilize me. And I'm sorry if Eric feels as caught in the middle "I didn't choose this" as I do about it, but also you're choosing to condone her bullying behaviors and allow them to continue and take part in it by sharing things from the collective you are a part of in whose name she's behaving this way as well as in her own name. That's you and your sets of choices -- you may not have chosen to create the situation of injustice, but you're choosing to let it perpetuate in your name as part of a collective and to be an active member of that collective share things from it as an implicit statement you endorse what is done in its name and aren't trying to fix what has been broken. Those are your choices. So I feel no guilt about you having to pay for your part in the choices to perpetuate bullying in the name of the collective you are actively a member of participating in and sharing things from. 

 

I can't make any promises for future me choices, but I'm ready to accept "rejection is protection" spiritual growth place towards Eric and let him go from my life path this lifetime -- even if the rejection is coming from his sister's bullying behaviors from the past which she refuses to acknowledge or change, he's still complicit in taking part perpetuating them and passing them along and allowing them to exist in his name as a member of the band. I cannot wish him ill, but as long as he's working creatively with his sister sharing anything from her or the band account she blocked me on in 2018, then to respect the boundary of his sister's creation and maintenance, Eric does not exist to me while he's working with her. For me it's that straightforward and there's no way for him to improve the situation while those blocks from the band account and her personal account exist by her choice. As I see it, the choices are to choose to work on healing this or to choose to accept let it go. Now, I would PREFER healing it but that's not something I can do all by myself without any cooperation/communication with the others involved. Trying to square the circle of having Eric in my life at all while keeping the toxic patterns of bullying ostracism boundaries created by his sister's choices and actions since 2018 without healing the consequences to find a balance that is workable for EVERYONE'S emotional/mental/spiritual well being is NOT a tenable way forward because the ostracism is still a player in the patterns of interactions. It's a toxic pattern that recurs if we don't break free of it and it will always be toxic and the only choices I see that are not inherently toxic patterns for me and him are to choose healing of the toxic dynamic her choices created/maintain or to choose letting go of the potentiality of anything growing between me and Eric. There may be other ways that aren't toxic patterns, but frankly I don't see them and none of them have worked because how can they so long as she is integral to his life as he has built it but wishes to not exist to me? She has created a binary "choose me or her" situation and I can't find a way out of that toxic pattern into a compromise via the actions available to me without cooperation/communication with others who would also prefer healing and rapprochement.

P.S. This morning when I checked it, my sunburn was still radiating enough heat that the coldest possible summer water (as cold as the outdoor pipes to get it to the building allow) was still uncomfortably hot against the skin that it hit after the sunburn, BUT it did not heat the cold water so hot to be scalding on the rest of the skin so I could FINALLY shower which I haven't been able to do since before Saturday. Which was also good because today was the in person SVD training and I did want to be showered before that.

[Post Title: lyrics to the Caamp song The Otter. I love this song so ridiculously much. It just makes me happy every time I hear it, both when I put it on and when it comes on the radio.]

 It has been more than 36 hours since I last had any sun exposure and I slept about 15 hours yesterday to let my body heal the sun poisoning and sunburn damage (only getting up to slather on more aloe vera before going back to sleep.) Despite long spans of time dancing in the downpours and standing in the thunderstorm last night AND many many many reapplications of aloe: I am still lobster red, my upper back (the part I sun burned the worst) is still radiating intense heat, I cannot wear bra straps or carry purses/bags on my shoulders without excruciating pain, even stretching my neck or shrugging my shoulders or lifting things hurts the skin to move across my back/shoulders/neck, I can't lean against chair backs, finding a position for sleeping to not put pressure on the sunburns was difficult making the pain of that pressure what most often woke me up yesterday, and I'm not usually sensory sensitive to tags on clothes but right now just the light pressure scratch of tags against the sunburned skin hurts to drive me batty....

And. Does this sunburn make the list of 10 worst sunburns, or even 25 worst sunburns in my life? No, it probably doesn't even make top 50 or 100..... But by normal people standards, this is a really bad once a decade sunburn.... And I put sunscreen on before brunch and then reapplied sunscreen every time we stopped at the bathroom of Crissy's work as we went around Art Fair -- which was about once every 1-1.5 hours because Crissy tends to have to pee frequently and I was only exposed to the sun for maybe 5-6 hours total and kept to the shade as much as possible.... 

When I was a kid, I used to think I burned until I tanned even though I still burned over the tan. I was in my 20s the first time a doctor told me those were burn scars not tan lines sent me to go get a look over by a dermatologist just in case.... My da and my grandma have both had basal, squamous, and melanomas removed (as well as other members of the family) and while I've had some anomalous looking freckles/moles removed, none have come back malignant. (I currently have a couple that are questionable I should go in about, but the last time I did it cost me $1200 out of pocket for removal and lab testing of the moles AFTER what insurance covered/reduced and because I rarely go in don't need allopathic med prescriptions, I never hit my moop. And it's even more now for biopsy and cancer screening. Do I have every known indicator for skin cancer risks? Yes. Yes I do. 

I have spent much of the summers of my life with my skin burned raw in extreme pain no matter how much sunscreen is put on em and reapplied -- and it definitely affected my feelings toward summer in a very negative way. I love the heat and there's a lot about summers I love, but it's probably my least favorite of all four seasons because invariably it means the pain of second and third degree sunburns just to enjoy an afternoon outside. And I say that EVEN THOUGH I am always cold (I bring cardigans and scarves with me everywhere in the summer because everything under 70 feels the same to me so the air con most places gives me goose bumps) and I love gardening, hiking, horse back riding, swimming, basking in the sun, canoeing/kayaking/boating, and most outdoor activities. I have good summer memories, but also a LOT of my summer memories involve me being in physical pain with my skin like raw meat after sun burning it. Whenever I don't have plans those days, I actually flip my schedule MORE to be awake all the dark hours and sleep during the sunniest parts of the day when I run the greatest risk that anything more than 7.5 minutes of sun exposure will send me into lobster territory.... 

There are sun worshippers and for 7.5 minutes exactly I am one of them because I don't mind the heat, I actually love basking in the heat and humidity like a cat or lizard -- but once those 7.5 minutes of sun exposure get used up and the sun feels like sharp needles jabbing every inch of my skin to let me know the sun burning has started, I have learned that all the more the sun can offer me past those 7.5 minutes is intense pain from lobster burning and potentially skin cancer down the line. Lord help us if I ever need to be put on any medications that cause increased photosensitivity..... 

Honest to God, I probably fell so deeply in love with gazing at the stars to feel I've come home and the austere sparkling beauty of winter despite how intensely I get cold BECAUSE I can always put on extra layers to stay warm but it is the season with the shortest hours and weakest angle of sunlight here in the north and so it is the time of what I am most free from the perilous risk and pain of sun burns if I want to be outside. (And I am always happiest outside, especially with trees or bodies of water or flowers, or when surrounded by music/books/art.) I'd probably love the day and the sun drenched hours/places more if I wasn't so fair skinned and easily sunburned.... 

So, I happen to look cute in most hats so I own a lot of styles of them, but I can never wear a cowboy/Aussie/gaucho hat without feeling like a walking cliche of some sort of community theatre group in a play set in in the west or Texas... They don't look BAD on me, they just make me feel imposter syndrome cliche and I slip into an Appalachian accent pretty constantly while wearing this style hat even if I haven't visited in a while haven't been hearing it.... Pretty sure everyone who wears cowboy/gaucho/Aussie style hats does so by making a conscious decision to cosplay as a community theatre cowboy, lol. Like you just put it on and accept that it's the mask identity you chose for the day and hide your real self within the role the hat forces one you. I still wore one yesterday for most of the day to protect my part from getting sunburned AND because I like that one and it was super cute with the calico dress. 

 

 

I did take the hat off before the outdoor show at Surly brewing Festival grounds though because at that time the weather was prediction like a half inch to inch of rain per hour right at the end of the show and that sort of rain would destroy that hat... And then it got hot and sunny and I ended up pinning up the pigtail braid into a crown instead. So during the Nickel Creek show, I had the Princess Leia crowned braids vibe, not the community theatre production of Shucked or some sort of western/Texan play, lol. I could have kept the hat and the book in my purse because the rain actually never materialized though until after the show ended and we were able to get on the road back towards Madison. (Some really heavy downpour bad storms though along the way, from like River Falls til Tomah or so.)

 Also... Good news bad news:

Good news: This year I didn't get sunburned at all until Bastille Day, well over halfway through the year.

Bad News: I got sooooo badly sunburns this weekend... Ouch.

My aloe gel is all at home, but I definitely was excited for tonight's thunderstorms so I could go outside and stand in the rain to pull out the heat and soothe my skin (and make my skin/hair super super soft!!! Rain water makes my skin and hair so velvety!) There was also a HUGE lovely bright double rainbow in the most golden hour luminously glowing honey colored air at the end of the rain!!!

But yeah, just a little bit sunburned today... This is before the rain, when I first got home from Art fair and it was starting to develop:

And this is how bright red it was later tonight after dancing in the rain to cool the burn and help the skin to heal AND a bit of a nap to help facillitate healing (and because I was exhausted, didn't sleep too much the last two nights) and the rain had brought the curls out so the bobby pins started springing out and I took down the ballerina bun:

 

Definitely very sunburned, definitely NOT going to like anything that isn't gently along my chest/upper back and arms...  

Also though, how adorable are those earring and the chyrsocalla/Peruvian blue opal (I don't know which, I'm going to dm the artist on insta to ask her which it is, but not tonight because she had to pack up her booth all by herself tonight)  necklace?! They are both from art fair today, the earrings are from a Mayan artist now based in Chi and the necklace from a Peruvian artist now in St. Louis. And both of them are delightful delightful humans! Also, I held both up fell in love with them and my maman was getting herself some jewelry at both of them and loved them for me offered to buying them both for me as just because gifts.

The earrings are the first thing that called to me as for ME to own (as opposed to things I loved but not for me) and thus the first purchase for me of the day. After I picked out decided to hold up this pair of earrings, which are unlike any other shapes/colors I own and there were others I LIKED but had similar ones, when I decided I did want this pair and wanted to wear them out, the female of the two owners who was standing by the entrance working on making more macrame earrings (they use a silk thread, and she had offered if there was any color or style we particularly loved but would want to pair another color/style she could make it before end of day) and talking theatre with us and a random other art fair patron who had just bought a pair of earrings heard us discussing our most recent APT and wanted to know how it was because the other lady is seeing August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom this coming week and then we discovered in talking we were at the SAME performance of Virgin Queen Entertains Her Fool. Anyway, after I picked out these sunny July feeling really uniquely shaped earrings (they make me think of Incan and Mayan sun imagery, my mum says they remind her of seahorses) the woman owner smiled shyly and tucked her hair back with a grin to show us that she was actually wearing the identical style/color combination earrings. She then showed me the other colors but agreed with my choice for the bright red sunshiney summer combination. She also was admiring my larimar copper wrapped necklace (which I love and have been wearing a lot lately) assumed I had made it and I had to tell her no but then I mentioned that recently I've been thinking about learning to wire wrap because every time I pick up stones and crystals I can just feel/and see how the stone would like to be wrapped to be worn. She lit up with that and waxed enthusiastic about how it was easy and I should do it if the stones were speaking to me and her husband (running the register) also laughed and quietly said, "Careful, you never know where jewelry making will take you once you start on it -- next thing you know, we may run into you as our neighbor vendor artist at a show."  And then I spent the rest of the show getting complimented on the earrings and helping send business (including other vendors) over to them as we walked the art fair, lol.

The necklace was actually the last purchase made, my mum had really loved her anklets and was regretting not having bought one so we went back to find her and the cheaper simple/small macrame Peruvian stone necklaces she put out later after we had stopped by. (She remembered me from the earrings and my other necklace pendants, especially since she loves opal) and then it was end of day and I was admiring the necklaces and this one called and to me immediately I told it that it was beautiful and she smiled said, "If any of those call to you, I will sell it to you for $10 off." And then when I said how they were all lovely but that this was the one called ot me I wanted, she put it on me to see it in the mirro and just started grinning over my shoulder and my mum was just like, "O! The stone was beautiful, but when she put it on you, it just started singing got more beautiful." And then my mum said she'd cover the other $40 buy me the necklace along with her anklet to only have to run one credit card fee for the artist. Also, before I even fell in love with this pendant and was just admiring them and she mentioned she had put them out later after our visit to have a cheaper/smaller option,  Kathy Fields was super adorable and she was like, "Please find me on instagram!

I also picked up some wood bookmarks from a Willows Woodworking -- I actually have quite a few wood bookmarks, but these were from scrap remainders of exotic unusual woods that she makes them and they were only $5 each. She doesn't stain or paint any of her woods, just curates them for the grains/colors, dry cures them for at least a year, and then seals them with Osmo clear wood oil. Also, I have a major thing for pretty woodgrains, always have always will. I had the hardest time not also picking up a sparled maple and a bubinga and black poplar bookmark as well and I'm still a little sad about that hard choice to not get those, lol. We definitely reached the point that I turned my back on the remaining bookmark display (that looked like samples of the woods she uses in her geometric designs) and both my mum and Crissy were like, "Dani, they're $5. The time you're debating trying to cull down from five is worth more than the extra $5." The Patagonian rosewood was the first to call to me, then the holly, then the Bocote (which makes me think of a tiger) then the redheart (which has the most amazingly dense colors in the very straight grain pattern1) and then the osage orange for the color of it! The holly, like the lacewood she also had which I didn't pick up but Crissy bought one of the lacewood bookmarks, has some incredibly interesting shimmer in the flecks through the wood....

I also picked up a couple little bookmarks from Dragonmar because she had some new originals I loved but I also couldn't drop $200 on an original and while she had many prints I loved (her prints are $10 or $20 depending on the size) there were none that were my style other than ones I already have. Well, she DID have a print of Boop! which is a new one of a polar bear with a butterfly on its nose, but the print turned out redder, especially the eyes, than the pretty brown of the original.  So I figured I will pick it up in the future perhaps as a print on a run that the eye color is browner not so reddish. I actually have the angel crows bookmark as a print, but I liked the owl bead with the print.

I also picked up prints from Pete Sandker (who I own a LOT of his surrealist symbolist nature art works, mostly the foxes and crows but also some other) and a mountain landscape from Charlotte Fung Miller and her daughter (there were some new originals, the Mount Fuji series and the colorful cranes which I LOVED, but couldn't afford and I didn't think would work for the colors of my current living space) but the mountain landscapes will look nice in the colors and other art and calming blues/greens I have in my bedroom.  Interestingly, the two have a very similar color palette -- I was

See what I mean about the colors playing nicely together? This Pete Sandker piece may actually be hung in my bedroom along with the polar bears, cranes, landscapes, and calligraphy I have in my bedroom. It was also adorable (and a huge compliment) while we were talking to Charlotte and her daughter and I was saying how it was the bright colors, the reds and golds calling to my aesthetic today but that I didn't know where the color schemed of them would fit in my home. And Charlotte goes, "Really? I feel like you're always called to the reds and golds bright colors." And then I mentioned that I do have some matched red/gold rice paper and flecks Chinese calligraphy form her (chi and love) and her daughter quietly said, "It's because she wears them a lot, like today. And she has such a bright chi to her." And Charlotte just nodded, "Yes, the red and gold in your chi are always bright when we see you. You're like a dragon visitor, always a caffeine pick me up from your red-gold energy when you stop by and how the brightness lingers, even late on long hot days." And it's just such a pretty compliment to have your soul light chi complimented -- and for someone who does traditional Chinese brushwork paintings and symbolism to tell you that you have a red gold energy is such a beautiful auspicious thing to say! (In Chinese culture, Red = luck joy, happiness, prosperity and Gold = good luck power, longevity, happiness)

Also. Unrelated to me being cute or art fair stories/art purchases. But astro poets... not only are Libra and Pisces once more in dialogue and the only ones in dialogue this week and the only ones on this same theme instead of poetic imagery, BUT the messages got even stronger promises about the love there for this coming week, lol. 

"Week of 7/14 in Libra: In the peaceful sense of it. All you feel is love. What reflects upon the water sees the sky as immense as it is. Somewhere there is the sense of everything. Pure love is what you feel."

"Week of 7/14 in Pisces: There is a hard sense to the word. But then it lights up in the very essence of everything. You know this to be real. You do what you can. And then you do it over again with love."

Aren't those lovely? Especially given all the dialoguing building love story between the Libra and Pisces horoscopes from them? It's such a beautiful unfolding story between these two signs dialoguing in the astro poets weekly horoscope emails. And just these two signs. Week after week after week.....It's so far beyond serendipity into the realm of synchronicity at this point. And it's so beautiful!

Ooft. Dayumn... My sunburned skin has gotten to the point of sun poisoning of "radiating intense heat, especially under my hair or if I put a sweater on, but I have goosebumps and chills without more on me"  This is within the realm of sunburns that, even when you take a shower as cold as possible, after it touches the sunburn it's scalding hot by the time the skin heated water rolls down onto the unburned portions of your skin. Fair skin redhead gene problems man... Lobster burns happen fast with me, even with reapplying sunscreen....  The sun feels good on me to bask in it, but at exactly 7.5 minutes of sun exposure and it goes from pleasant to feeling like microderm needles puncturing my skin and the sunburning starts...