I. Well no, I can't promise I've learned not to ever again try to render the bond asleep and to give him up thinking it's what he wants based on his freewill choices. I'm sorry, I wish I could promise that but I can't at this time. Because I don't know his choices, current or future, and I don't know enough about what guides him in his choices to promise I won't once again find myself in a situation where what seems best to me for him to have what he chooses for his life requires that I let him go and remove myself as best I can including at the soul deep level of the bond. I would only do it if I thought it what he wanted and chose for his own happiness. Even with having observed that he doesn't seem to handle it well whenever I've tried to render the bond dormant, I could convince myself it's only been coincidence that he's had such deep inner turmoil and hurt every time I've tried to quiet the bond -- I don't KNOW it to be causality after all, it could just be correlation. I don't even know that he feels and recognizes the pull of the bond even if it is ours not mine... It could just be something inside me and not something he feels inside him at all. I don't have any certainty which means I could rationalize myself into denying his side of the bond if his choices supported that interpretation of what I can know of his side.

I can promise you that I won't do it again unless he makes choices that make me feel there's no place for me in his life. I could even promise him if he asked that I'll tell him give him a chance to fix things before I act on such feelings, that I'd tell him what was making me feel there's no place for me in his life and his choices make me believe he'd be happier if I removed myself from him and I wouldn't act on it until we'd had time to talk it over between us.  These are promises I could make even now with all the lacunae in what I know of his side of things. 

I can't promise more. Not without knowing that it's me pulling away trying to deaden the bond that sends him so deep into dark night of the soul trying to cope with that emptiness until he can fix it restore it. Not without knowing what he is actually wanting and choosing for himself now. Not without knowing how he sees me fitting into his life and his choices for the future. 

Is that enough? For now at least. To know what I can promise now and what I would need to know for me to promise more in the future?

I know the bond is wyrd. I know it's not any part of how most people do modern dating or courtship or relationship building... I've dated the modern way and I always knew there was some part of me reserved that only the bond can reach and questioned if that was enough or if it was fair to whoever I was dating to keep building the relationship on those terms. I question the same thing even now whenever I have considered dating other men as my way of coping with not thinking I can be with Eric this life. The bond is wyrd. It both complicates and simplifies things. And it's not a cord that can be cut like most empath and karmic cords -- this is something deeper and older and it's the only one like this in me. I genuinely can't remember any incarnating life of mine without it and I can't remember how we forged it or when. I know it's isness but not the why or how or when of it. Like I said, the bond is wyrd.

And. I don't know how aware of it he is or how much he feels it recognizes it in this life.  I don't know if he feels it as strongly as I do or recognizes it for what it is... But that would also affect my promises, if I knew how aware and sensitive to it he is. If I knew how much of what I feel and think reaches him down the bond. I know what my heart tells me of these things and how it reverberates between our souls down the bond -- but that's not the same as head knowing and evidence and him telling me his experiences or lack thereof surrounding the bond. And it's the head that makes the hard logical stoic choices when I don't see what else I could do in a situation. If left to the heart, I'd have just as deep a faith as I used to in the strength of the bond and the inevitability of its pulling us together as I used to before I ever started doubting he was seeking me as I sought him, started doubting his choices had a place for me in his life. If my heart made all the calls, my faith wouldn't be worn so thin questioning the promise that the bond would bring us together this lifetime come hell or high water. 

And that's why I can't make the promise I have learned my lesson won't ever do it again when it comes to trying to quiet the bond -- because I know full well that my head won't listen to my heart if he starts in again on choices that leave no way for our life paths to come together and I see no place for me in his life and he seems happy/excited with the choices he has made for building his life. I can promise that if he chooses me and the bond and has learned the value there to him in his life, then he needn't worry about me trying that again. Not for as long as he's choosing me and the bond between our souls. But that's another if/then clause -- and the fact I don't know the if is why I can't make a more concrete "I've learned my lesson and I won't do it again" promise at this time.  

All that said....this morning the intensity of the flood of his love pouring down the bond left no place for doubting. Not while it's like that. And it's been like that for hours, since just after sunrise. 

I wish it were always like this. That I could always hear his heart this clearly. No matter the distance.

I know why it isn't. Especially with the distances between us at this time. But a girl can still wish.