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]
No comments:
Post a Comment