Whenever the aurora dance so brightly, it makes me miss my polar bear even more keenly than at all the other times of always missing him. The aurora dancing brightly reminds me of the vision dream when I rode with the fée to discuss with the polar bears how to help them survive the coming crisis of sea ice melt and while I was part of the seelie ride I wasn't part of the negotiations so while wandering the camp between the snow/ice and the northern lights, I found him among the polar bears so sad and wanting me to choose to re-open the connection between us after I had it shut down so I would not receive graphic overlays of what he was doing while with the scorpion chick in Raleigh. So whenever the aurora dances, it makes me miss him and associate it with him wanting to bridge the disconnect and any blocks between his soul and mind. And the aurora have been dancing so bright and so intense the last two weeks....

I have resolved and ironed out what was bothering me most of the big things that I needed to focus my time/energy on figuring out. Not fully resolved, that won't be until I take it out which... I'm not currently sure I have a way to come back from no matter how I weaken it before confronting it... and for now all I've done is take care of a loophole niggling my conscience form what I'd already cleaned up by putting in place some unexpected new protections for innocent souls it would otherwise feed on. I didn't put timeframes on my request that shifted the rules of divine interventions and it definitely caused some timelines ripples through the past as well present/future... But no harm came of it, only good, and this is a better Unvierse with brighter fatelines than the ones before I placed my new loophole in the rules so power balance shift by laying my request  at the feet of divinities. You really need to be careful with me... I play within the rules to find the loopholes to change the rules and about the only thing that constrains my ethics is my fundamental core belief that all free will is sacrosanct because it is only in acts of free will that there is any meaning in anything an incarnating soul does. You are never free from the cause and effect consequences of your choices, cause and effect and karma are thermodynamic laws of how this Creation unfolds and so I can't save you from the cause and effect bad consequences of choosing harmful choices, but I always have and always will hold the right of free will to choose for itself as something utterly sacrosanct within the cycle of souls incarnating.

That deals in metaphysical things and how I have a habit of using my spark of chaos serving the order of Creation to find the loopholes and in the name of something that's an injustice shift the rules between the incarnating and the Divine. This wasn't the first I shifted the rules, though it was my first time going to Ganesh and Krishna with a favor to ask -- mostly because they are not allies of mine in my past nor are they any part of my self-appointed task in my wandering to clean up the messes of psychic scarring and lingering vampiric/malefic unincarnated spirit wherever I find them. My Goddess, best understood as Artemis Britomartis but that's only the aspect of her I knew best back in the time she was named that, many many lifetimes ago, is the one who I deal the most with while I'm here in the cycle of incarnations and who is always watching over me and who won't let any get near to me if they have any intentions of hurting me. She was the one whose permission I needed to make exception for my polar bear, so that as long as he's true in his intention of seeking me out in this life, he can always reach me along the bond no matter what protections she or I surround me with. Eric is the only incarnating soul who can always reach me you know through any and all protections he can always reach me through it, because of the bond between our souls and how it works -- the only time he can't reach me is when he betrays and is unfaithful to the burning desire in him to find me and reach me and to bring us together in our quotidian everyday life. And the price of his infidelity to the bond is that he can be happy in whatever other connections he makes, but he wills top hearing the resonance of how the bond sings and so the songs won't come to him to seek form. I don't know why because even then I can hear the songs echoing in my internal quiet space even when he's shut out by his choices from reaching me there still I can hear his songs and how they echo, but when he turns away from me and the bond he can't hear his own songs. I don't know why, I just know that it's his wyrd, his soul contracts as he wrote them for this life...I wouldn't keep that from him, if I could give him his songs Iwould you know... It's his own wyrd, his own soul's truth that keeps them from him now and nothing I can do  to give them to him except to tell him that he has to listen to his soul's truth and not the distractions and empty promises and energy sucking lampreys of this world trying to distract him from that. Even when I chose last Spring that the best thing I could do for him to be happy was to let go of any expectations I held that I had always held form childhood as my firmest faith that somehow he and I would find each other this life and get to be together after so many lifetimes apart, it wasn't to tr to make him see that the price of such choices was to lose his connection to his songs. I can't help that his songs are tied to the resonance between his soul and mine or that when he tries to deny that bond or seek happiness outside of seeking me he loses his ability to hear his own songs.... That's his wyrd, not mine. 

But it did break my heart a bit to read his emails this week and to listen to the first song. Broke it open in the ways that let the light in through the cracks -- which is a hard thing to do when I'm in the hollows of grieving. (And I am still in the hollows of grieving my dog's death and the absence in my life where there was presence. I grieve hard over loss. I always have. Even when you believe in reincarnation and remember past lives and promised the soul of your luck dragon Pisces pup that she can come back as your son or if those timelines don't manifest she can return as often as she wants as your familiar, still her absence hurts. As does my self blame for accepting her choice I not drain myself to keep healing her but would only let me take her pain from her those last months.) It cracked open my heart to know that he's so deeply afraid of his ongoing lack of connection to his own soul's music since he met his now girlfriend and chose to try to stop seeking me and stop making things right between us and stop trying to build a life where he and I are together... That wasn't my intention of trying to free hm from my expectations of away for us to be together being a mutual desire, I didn't know that the price of him looking elsewhere would be to disconnect him from his songs because he disconnected from the source of the resonance and music... But by his own wyrd, I can't reconnect him to the sound of his own soul's music so he can write songs again except by reconnecting him to his soul's purpose and quest of trying to reach me  and be with me this life. It's all bound together on the same chain, the same bond, the same resonating cord between his soul and mine that pulls us to yearn for each other when we're in separation. And I don't know a way for him to have the music of that connection without him choosing the soul path of his soul's purpose/quest to find me again.... I just don't know any other way. I didn't take it from him, it's not mine to take it's only mine to feed with the soul light of whatever I/we feel and hope and believe -- he separated himself from the resonance of the songs when he gave up seeking me and chose to be with someone else who can distract him make him happy in the life he built in separation from me. And those are his choices to make, not mine. And I don't know what's in his best interest, it's why I don't presume to make other people's choices for them and instead I only show them choices they didn't se or warn them of consequences they didn't expect or give them information to make better choices -- I just know in my bones that he can't have his music while he's attached to the lamprey lady and distracting himself letting her feed on his energy so he stops seeking to reach me. Even were I dead and thus unreachable, it is only in his soul's desire to reach my soul as it mourns for my body's death that he would be able to hear his own songs following my temporal death -- only in being true to our soul bond and how it pulls between our souls can he hear his songs. That is his wyrd. Just as part of my wyrd is to fight for brighter futures and fatelines with whatever weapons I can get my hands on when I see wrongs that only I can make right. We each have our wyrd. And the wyrd of his music and his songs is tied up bound to the pull of the bond between his soul and mine if he wants to have the resonance of his soul through his songs and not just the soulless mechanical aspects of songwriting by the book.

If he wants his song writing back, he has to give up the distractions of the lamprey and return to trying to seek me, even as the ice is forming between us. That's his wyrd. He can choose to be happily distracted by the materialism of the lamprey's promises from her daddy's money or he can choose to commit once more to his vow and his soul contract to seek me and find me by following the pull of the bond between our souls and try to be together again in this life after such long separation and in that re-commitment to his vows/wyrd/soul contracts the songs will resonate again inside him as well as inside me. It's his choice to make. But he can't have his songs and be distracted choosing to be with someone else give up on hoping/seeking to reach him. His songs only echo inside him while he's in alignment with his own soul and his own soul's purpose, and that requires fidelity to our bond and what runs between us and in seeking to bring us together instead of prolonging the separation created all those centuries ago when he betrayed me handed me over to be burned and then carried his own guilt across lifetimes to keep him from feeling he deserved me. I chose to enter the incarnations because there were things that could only be cleaned up from within and I said "if not me then who?" He chose to incarnate to help me in my self-chosen task and because he didn't want to be separated from me watch me lose my way if he wasn't there to remind me bring me back to myself. If he's not serving his purpose of choosing to enter the incarnations all those lifetimes ago, his gifts diminish -- same as mine have when I have lost my way.

Still. I do hope he can find his way back to his songs and hearing the music that resonates in the place between our souls connecting. It's beautiful the music that sings there and he's really good at finding the parts of the long song and reworking them into a form he can gift to the world and to other people outside the connection to help them heal and be less broken by this time/space in humanity. I don't say I wish it out of selfishness of wanting him to want me back -- it would be meaningless if it were given because I asked/demanded rather than freely given. I wish it for his sake if losing his connection  to it makes him feel fear and emptiness not to have his connection to the songs. And I wish it for everyone who he could help and heal and whose pain he could ease or whose joy he could rekindle with his songs. I tried to be unselfish and to sacrifice and to give him up for the sake of his happiness elsewhere. but if that price is more than he wants to pay, then the sacrifice is worthless and I'd just as soon reclaim my hope and belief that our souls will find each other this lifetime to heal the long separation and that I have a right to that faith that our souls are meant to seek each other out, across all of time/space and any other damn thing that would separate us. I gave up that faith accepted putting it to rest for his sake, in the belief that it would allow him to pursue a happiness in his own life choices even if it mean not having me among them. I can reawaken that faith that we belong on fatelines where we are together in reality despite anything anyone would choose to do to separate us and then his songs will return -- but he will lose his enchanted torpor he's been in to rest content within the distractions of the lamprey or anyone else because he will once again feel the pull between our souls and know he's not following the path that will bring him to the light he seeks or to achieve his soul's purpose for being in the incarnation.It will draw him to realize where I am and the thickness of the ice grown across the path between us -- and if spirit dreams are true between me and him we can break that ice once he discards the lamprey distraction of his own free will. But it has to be his free will choice before i will reawaken my faith in our connection, and it won't be until that is reawakened and the pull returns to him drawing him to seek me that his songs will sing again in his silences. That is his wyrd. Not mine. He wrote the wyrd of his soul contracts, I can only read them and when I choose to i can share what I read.

But he can't choose to be with his lamprey he's been distracted by infatuated with AND have his songs resonating through his soul at the same time. He can finish work on songs that he heard echoing in him before he met her and chose to be distracted by what she offers, but new songs won't come to him even while he works on the other older ones except they come from him choosing to be faithful to the resonance in the bond between his soul and my soul. That's the rules of his own chosen wyrd. And it's because he doesn't want to fail repeating the same patterns of what he chose before instead of choosing our bond -- so he set the highest price on himself if he once again betrayed that yearning to end the separation.... he chose the wyrd when he wrote his soul contracts before he incarnated in this life. It's his wyrd, to try to force himself to face and fix what he broke all those centuries ago. His wyrd not mine. Just as it's his choices to make for his own life and his own present and his own future -- for it's his happiness and his life path(s) to walk. He made his wyrd before he chose this incarnation for himself, nobody can unmake it in this life -- not even him. He can write another wyrd next life while he's in soul review between lives so he can try to guide his next incarnation(s) down the path for the lessons his soul needs to learn. But once it's set in motion, not even he can change his wyrd, he can choose his path in defiance of his wyrd, but he can't change the wyrd he chose for himself that if he tries to choose anything/anyone else in lieu of the yearning, he will lose his greatest gifts born from the way the bond sings and resonates. He chose that consequence for himself if he once again chose the temptation of betrayal of the bond, of the yearning, yet again. He made his wyrd as a consequence of his potential future choices. I can't alter it, he wrote it for himself. 

Whatever he chooses for himself, I will always want for him that it brings him the happiness he seeks. All of it, every last bit of the happiness he seeks and chooses for himself. Love isn't a competition, and anyone who thinks it is doesn't understand the true nature of love -- I don't love him more or less for being willing to let him choose his own path. I love him to want his happiness to be of his choosing, whatever that may be, more than I want it to chain him enslave his will to my own will. And claiming I loved him more with me than loving him choosing what would give him his own greatest happiness is to use my love as a tool of enslaving his. To claim to love more is to be trying to frame love within the master-slave dialectic -- and that is something I refuse to do. For love is not between a master and a slave, a greater and a lesser, an "I love you more battle" is just another name for a competition to prove who is the master and who is the slave in the dynamic and thus it can never be the highest forms of love. Love deserving of that name can only be a bond of recognition and respect between equals who honor each other as equals for it to truly deserve to be called love. And by my definition of love, I could never wish for him anything else than to wish that he be able to have the happiness he seeks and chooses for himself in this life and in every life of his -- even if the price of my definition of love is me sacrificing what I want letting him go his own way without me in it because that's what he chooses for himself and me trying to navigate what the consequences of that mean to me. And if losing me is not anything of what he wants then it's me insisting he damn well best find a way to make room for me in his life. Whichever he prefers and chooses for his own happiness. But he can't choose both at once, because he can't not have me in his life and also have me in his life... Even quantum superposition can't solve that one. 

And whatever he chooses for his happiness, there ain't a damn thing I can do to change his wyrd -- all I can do for him is the same I can do for anyone incarnating within the cycle of souls: to illuminate their wyrd so they can make choices of their own free will with the clearest best knowledge and truth possible. And then let them make their own choice(s). Wyrd is the fate you create for yourself to force yourself to learn your own lessons, no matter what path you choose. As I understand it, wyrd is an expression of free will in the time you're free to pick anything to chart the course for your incarnation and the lessons it has to teach you. Wyrd is as sacrosanct to me as the active choices of free will made within the life. Sometimes I can read the wyrd of the soul contract the soul wrote before a given incarnation. Not always, not for everyone. But sometimes I can. Almost always when I'm wrapped up in it or when I've known the soul a very long time. He qualifies under both of those for reasons I can read the parts of his own wyrd that he wrote that relate to me and the bond between our souls, even if I couldn't hear it in teh echoes and under the words of every melody and every line and every song that sings through the bond and into both of our inner silences when we cut out the distractions and listen to the stillest places in our own souls. "It is the stillest words which bring the storm. Thoughts that come with doves' footsteps guide the world"~Friedrich Nietzsche, from Thus Spoke Zarathustra

If he cut out all the distractions and sat within himself and really took stock of listening to his own stillest inner tranquility places, he'd know the truth of his own wyrd without needing to hear it from me. He'd know why it is that he fears his choices of the last year would lead him to lose his ability to be a great songwriter. And he'd know why only he can chart  his course by what matters most to him at this time in this life to get him to the happiness he seeks. He doesn't need me to read him his wyrd, deep inside him, in the stillest parts of his soul that can't be bought off by yachts and first class plane tickets and any other money purchased materialist soul sucking external distraction, he knows his wyrd and he knows the why of it. He doesn' need me to tell him or to verify it. he already knows. And because it's his WHY and a guide on his life path, he knows the reasons of it far better than even I ever could understand it. Because it's his wyrd and they're his choices, he wrote it for himself -- for the times he'd need to listen to the deepest truths of his own soul in the stillest places within him. The places where there is only his own greatest truths, the place beyond all external distractions that don't lead him to his truths.

He wrote his wyrd. Not me. I can free him of my expectations that he be enslaved by my desires rather than pursuing what he chooses for himself. If that's what he wants, I have the inner strength to make me do that and deal with the consequences that inflicts on me as well as on him. But I can't free him from the soul contracts he wrote for himself and the wyrd they made for his life based on what he chooses for himself. "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" His wyrd is what he can't be free of within this life, it's what he always has to lose if he tries to be free of his soul contracts and the lessons he wanted to learn this life before he embarked into it. And it terrifies him because he knows that.

If I could advise him anything it would be to sit in his own stillness and listen to his own truths and chart his own course to reach the happiness he seeks foe himself in this life of his. Not to anyone else's pressures or opinions or distractions -- to listen only to himself and his innermost knowing and truth.

~*~*~*~*~

I also now have a plan in place now for my May drive back from my sister's place in Washington to bring their dog to live with me (or my parents) whichever is the better fit for her. The main thing is that she remain with pack and family since the fit isn't good for her at my sister's family. It's complicated and there's no blame from me, I just want to get everyone to places/situations where everyone can best love and be loved and thrive. And that means rehoming Waffles within the family where she already has pack love and loyalty but to be where she can feel loved and accepted member of the pack consistently as opposed to the current situation. . Maddie stepped up when I asked her and immediately booked her ticket to fly out and is excited for roadtrip adventure time with me on a 30 hour drive with a not as well socialized as she should be COVID puppy. before getting hired to her OT job (what she went to college for) Maddie also worked at a doggy daycare so she's used to helping dogs become better versions of themselves and dealing with barking/behavioral training with love and consistency but not bonding them to you. 

And that's good. Ever since setting that in motion, I've had precogs of that path as viable and the places we will visit on the way back include once again visiting the Badlands. 9It's always a stop on the drive to/from Montana from here -- you get to chosoe northern badlands or southern badlands, but all the routes between WI and Montana/Washington require flying over or driving through the badlands. Every time.) That trip won't be until May. May 2 I fly to Seattle to visit with my sister and her family and then Maddie flies out to Seattle on May 13 and we will do some drives/trips to see pretty Washington nature and bring waffles with for bonding get her used to happy hiking car time with me/us then we'll start the drive back with a first stop at my parents cabin in Montana for a day or two (depending on if leave Kirkland on May 15 or 16 determines how many days in Montana) with a stop in the Badlands to stretch out legs and admire the beauty of it and the goal to be home at some point on May 19 so Maddie can be back for Circus World opening weekend and I can return the rental car by noon on May 20. I've seen in precogs some other potential travel mates other than Maddie for that drive back, but they don't make sense so I'm kind of just ignoring those precogs sticking to the path I opened up by asking her if she was interested and her immediately saying yes and buying her southwest ticket once I cleared up with Alana that she could be honest with me as I had other people able/willing to make it work so she didn't have to feel guilty if she couldn't make it work after me waiting for her to get back to me for 3 weeks to ask her boss about it take pto.

I should consider sleeping soon. (Or make the choice not to sleep until Sunday night.) I need to be heading out by 7:30am to pick up coffee and then get Mikaela to drive us the two hours to a rock and mineral show in Appleton. I had a realization this week after seeing a picture of it that I needed duomortierite (preferably in a quartz matrix) for me to find the next places to go on the stepping stone path of shifting fatelines to get humanity through to one where there's a future as a vehicle of incarnation beyond self-destruction and taking this entire planet down with it....

And then I was trying to figure out where to wander my way yo find me some duomortierite that I can trust to be legit by encountering it in person (I distrust online crystal sellers as a general rule) and my first instinct was Burnie's rock Shop (the rock store in town that my grandfather took me to as a child when my love of gems/minerals became known) and then I decided they might be too limited since they're such a small rock store and what I needed was like, Burnie's but at an entire show of crystals. And within five minutes of me realizing that and seeing it in my precogs, Burnie's Rock Shop posted on their facebook about going through their collection of specimens they acquired at the Arizona shows for what they were bringing to Appleton this weekend for the big WI rock and mineral and fossil show. And when I immediately asked the almost 18 year old munchkin in my life if she was busy this weekend and wanted to go to a rock show with me in Appleton she got super excited and giddy and said yes immediately. 

So that's my Sunday plan -- to pick up coffees and the almost 18 year old, then drive two hours away to a rock show in Appleton, spend as much of the 6hrs it's open as we desire surrounded by rocks and crystals and fossils and jewelry and try not to break my budget on pretty shinies, then drive the two hours back from Appleton and drop Mikaela back off at her home before heading into work to get hours in until whenever I head home to my cat.

The older I get, the better I understand why in college I was targerted to be taken out by the nephilim/dark unincarnated vampiric demonic soul that is what came through when in high school my family was warned, "a window that is safe has been breached" before it burrowed backwards in space/time to lay its feeding networks. Because I always saw this as a private reward life, not one for me to leave any mark in history books or social/political structures -- and yet the things I've been shifting behind the scenes, at a core spiritual level have been world shaking. And every move this nephilim makes to try to destroy me in the present/past, it causes me to find a way to completely change the parameters by making an argument in the name of justice/fairness while staying within the technical rules of unfolding creation and the laws of incarnating versus unincarnating souls but shaking up power structures/paradigms in completely unexpected profound ways. This morning I created another time quake by making a standing supplication to old gods (ones that I personally hadn't previously worked with specifically in my past lives but who are ancient and allies though from different branches of the prismatic pantheons of immortals; apparently they know me and admire my work within the incarnation but having no connections with me waited for me to approach them to ask) and this was such a huge shift that didn't have any time constraints or teleological time constraints (since I tend to exist in the long now and get confused between past/present/future on the sphere of time) that I have no idea how far forward/backward the ripples will go or what major mandela effect shifts I've created this time. I ask one petition to divinities I'd not previously made alliances with and did it in proper spiritual supplication following the old rules of direct contact and the shifts that made are bigger than even I could have imagined.... This is bigger than any of the ripples and past shifts I've caused in the last 15 years by my convincing and asking in the name of justice.... (Let's not talk about the shift I created 15 years ago.... But there are some massive ones I've done in the interim...)

How a chaotic good fey decided "if not me then who" so chose to enter into the cycle of souls to incarnate as a Hand of Ma'at with the gift to shift fate lines in the service of Divine Justice constrained only by a complete unshakeable adherence to the sanctity of free will... And it baffles me WHY this is allowed as a correction for what I chose to step in as an incarnating soul for a while to deal within the rubric of incarnations while fighting those who won't follow the rules....

Also. This powerful nephilim I'm in long multi-life chess battle with is going to be so pissed once it realizes what I just shifted and did.... And I don't know what it will do this time when it gets angry. And given that, it's probably for the best then that I am single and unattached right now so it can't use someone weaker to keep me from doing what must be done for whatever it tries next. because, the best way to get me to backdown from a fight brought to me is the threat to those I love. As long as those I love are safe/protected or don't want me to compromise for anything, then I only "back down" as a strategic setup for a stronger next move.

This is it, boys, this is war. What are we waiting for? Why don't we break the rules already? I was never one to believe the hype. Save that for the black and white. Try twice as hard, and I'm half as liked, But here they come again to jack my style. That's alright (that's alright.) I found a martyr in my bed tonight. She stops my bones from wondering just who I am, who I am, who I am. Oh, who am I? Mmm, mmm-mmm. Well, some nights, I wish that this all would end. 'Cause I could use some friends for a change. And some nights, I'm scared you'll forget me again. Some nights, I always win (I always win.) But I still wake up, I still see your ghost. Oh Lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for. Oh-oh (Oh-ooh-woah) what do I stand for? (Oh-ooh-woah) what do I stand for? Most nights, I don't know. so this is it? I sold my soul for this? Washed my hands of that for this? I miss my mom and dad for this? No, when I see stars, when I see- When I see stars, that's all they are. When I hear songs, They sound like a swan, so come on.

 I'm not joking about the depths of my capacity to sacrifice what I normally cherish and love and to martyr myself while I'm in the hollows. Not just chopping my hair off, my self sacrificing runs far deeper than that.....

After my grandfather died, I gave up dance because my parents were arguing over being too busy/stressed to be able to take me to class (my grandfather had always taken me before he got too sick with his cancer to drive me and then he made sure my grandmother drove him and me to my classes until he was too weak to even make it to the car.) When i saw that I was causing further pain, I told them quietly not to worry about my dance class, I didn't have to go anymore -- it wasn't bringing me joy anymore anyway. I was 9. The two things I had always said I wanted to be when I grew up were a ballerina and an author -- and there I was quietly telling the adults not to worry about taking me to ballet class because it didn't make my heart happy while I was grieving. I didn't step back into a ballet salle to reclaim my love of it until I was 22. I don't have words for the brightness of the joy and sense of rightness I felt reclaiming what I loved and had tried so hard to sacrifice. but it took me 13 years to even decide to put a pair of ballet slippers back on my feet to try to reclaim what I had willingly sacrificed while grieving deep in the hollows....

Being in the hollows of grieving at times in the past, whether over deaths of loved ones, loved pets, endings of relationships I cherished deeply, has also led me to give up writing, sketching, painting, the ocean, letting my polar bear reach me even in dream space after deciding I needed to let him go while grieving over letting go of his band and everything I believed them to be following the bullying ostracism that the girls engaged in in the name of the band... I genuinely don't believe he even misses me or recognizes the hole in his inner space where I always was because he's too busy distracting himself with what he lies to himself that he has always sought. But it doesn't matter. And right now, it doesn't even hurt that I gave up on him and let him go while I was grappling with all my precogs and my knowing that I was experiencing my last times with my sweetest emo  Pisces pup and that I wouldn't be able to heal her because she wouldn't let me-- it doesn't feel like anything. Nothing feels like anything right now with how deep in the hollows I am mourning my dog's physical absence.... Even 8+ inches of snow can't make me light up in joy over the beauty of it -- I know because it didn't a week and a half ago and it isn't yet even making me excited happy impatient for when the next round of beautiful heavy snow starts in the morning.... What's one more absence when you're so deep in the hollows even the excitement and beauty of the fresh snow can't light joy in your heart?

I don't feel anything at all right now when I think of him, or when I think of letting him go, or when I think of how he decided to lie to himself and fall for someone else while I was trying to ready my heart with playing Cassandra that my luck dragon wouldn't see another Spring or another Summer or another Fall and finally not even another snowfall..... O that betrayal and that letting go of him if that's the version of him he chose to be hurt and cut me so deep to grapple with nine months ago -- but these last weeks since the new moon when she died I've just felt nothing at all about it or about him. It's easy to let him go right now and tell myself that our life paths don't cross or belong together this life, because it doesn't hurt right now to accept that just as it doesn't hurt to think of him or let him go with no expectation of ever seeing him or crossing paths again. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't feel anything at all regarding him. So letting him go is easy, I'm not giving up anything that brings me joy just as it's nothing that hurts me. Every night I'm consistently calmly telling Artemis and the Morrigan not to let him reach me in dream space unless he has decided to actually choose me this life, wanting or missing me isn't enough -- he has to consciously and actively choose me as what he wants and seeks in his actions as well as intention for me to let him reach me again. This has been an easy boundary line in the sand to hold and have the Goddesses guard for me in my dream space. At the last new moon is when my Goddess (Artemis/Britomartis) started swapping nights with The Morrigan started bringing to visit me every sleep the soul of my Audrey Pupburn to visit with me in my sleep and asked if she can let him in past her guard since he's been trying to reach me if he's also asleep when I sleep. My Goddess and The Morrigan aren't the same, but The Morrigan has been very interested in me since I saved the life of a baby crow and later was adopted by my crow family. She is one of the crow/raven deities who adopted me and protect me for the last decade or so since that happened. 

While I'm in the hollows, I'll not reach for him or seek him or try to make our paths cross. I accept his past choices and the consequences completely and I feel nothing at all about them or where they currently lead.  I know what fatelines his choices will bring about -- and right now I don't care to fight them, i don't care to try to change his mind. I just feel nothing but to shrug and say "okay then, that's what you say you want" and to walk away without even a glance back. It's how it is for me when I'm in the hollows. letting go is easier than fighting to hold on to things that don't make you feel anything right now and which trying to keep them going causes upset to other people's plans....

It's also not hard right now for me to accept letting go of We Banjo 3 as they take a break that's a breakup. It doesn't hurt me to have muted David and to not see or hear anything of his solo release since October when he went on tour with his energy vampire girlfriend and opened at her European shows was promoting her heavily. She's all through the songs and I find the moldy mango color of her vocals and harmonies disgusting in the one song i tried to listen to last fall. I feel nothing at all about choosing not to listen to his songs or support his solo work due to her involvement in it after I warned him in fall 2020 that there was nothing he could ever do or create that Ajeet was part of that would appeal to me or I would choose to watch or listen to. 

I don't hold any value right now in Eric or Dave, it costs me nothing to let them go because I feel nothing about their absence in my life. They've made their free will choices, and I feel nothing about accepting that and letting them go instead of making nay effort to keep them in my life for the joy they and their music once gave me.... 

There's also a good friend of mine with cptsd (though little to nothing in events this life to warrant it, it's from her last life which she doesn't remember) who I helped grow as much as I could but the last time I visited her, on the drive back from Detroit I diagnosed her as having Munchausen's and Munchausen's by proxy based on her behaviors not taking care of her sister's elderly cat who needs daily meds while her sister was out of town during part of our visit and me calling her out about not taking care of Mia and explaining to Crissy what had been said about Mia's meds. Crissy and I took on taking care of the cat while Debbie was out of town because after that incident of being lied to by Erin I didn't trust her and you don't fuck around with the meds of a dependent animal who can't take care of themself..... When we left, I told Crissy my diagnosis and said that as a Hand of Fate, this situation wasn't fair to Debbie putting her own life on hold so long or the animals situationally dependent on Erin who wasn't taking that responsibility seriously - so while I wished Erin no I'll will, I was done trying to help her and instead she needed to be removed for the sake of Debbie, Mia the cat, and Abby (Erin's dog.) Erin fell in love with a guy online in Hawaii who's still married with a kid and a green card is somehow involved but she moved out there to be the other woman and then complains about the actual wife and the never ending divorce process etc.  Anyway. The day Audrey died, Erin chose to text me reach out in "sympathy" after seeing my post that Audrey was dying and all my friends/family who had written the sweetest kindest most supportive messages about when they have lost their own beloved pets, especially the first pet that was ever theirs alone. I have been genuinely blown away by the amount of love and support and wisdom and sharing of their own hurts that so many people have gifted me these last weeks. Anyway, that's NOT what Erin did. Even after being told I was sitting with Audrey to be there for her in the spirit of love she needed and deserved AND being told that Audrey's breathing had changed, Erin decided that was the time to try to turn the conversation about her own suffering and her situation (of her own making) and kept going despite me being brutally honest in what few responses I gave and then one word responses and finally not responding. (I was checking my phone because Karissa wasn't certain if she had time or wanted the closure of a proper goodbye with audrey but I had told her she could come over after she had spent the morning crying from my post that Audrey was dying.... Karissa had lived with us and living with Audrey was the main impetus for her to want her own dog, Chewie, and to bring me with to meet her and help with her first dog adoption.) I almost didn't check to see Nancy's texts of support and love and Junior (her potties who died of old age over the summer) talking to her in spirit form wanting her to give a message for me and Audrey. But with Erin's texts, I didn't even let me be angry at Erin over it in the moment because that would have decentered me from the place of love I need to be in for Audrey's sake and caused her to experience agitation over my anger instead of peace and love and to let herself die knowing how deeply and fully she was loved. Later that night, Erin tried again to talk to me and spin it about her own suffering AFTER I had posted about Audrey's burial (there are many people who live far away who love Audrey and many who felt she was vicariously in their life through my posts and I had decided when I knew she was dying and I couldn't save her that I wouldn't be selfish in my suffering like my instincts tell me to do, but instead wanted to make sure everyone who loved her knew and could share their love and sorrow with her and me as she died. Because that's what Audrey Pupburn wanted.) I was already in the hollows so I didn't feel my own anger at Erin though I knew I should be (Crissy was angry enough for both of us when I told her) and instead I chose to not even let Erin open that can of worms -- even though she sent me the same message three times of vague knowing what it is to be having a hard time to try to garner my sympathy make it about her suffering again... I know that her uncle died and her mom's dementia has progressed worse and she may die in the next year, but all that Erin wanted to do was make it clear how much she personally is hurting because of the situation of her own making with Jacob's legal wife and the divorce and the kid..... Not about her losses, which she has to share with her sister Debbie (also a friend, currently packing up all her belongings so her dad can sell the house to pay for their mom's medical care -- Debbie is planning to move to Gettysburg area) but to try to make it about her suffering of her own creation. During the last hours of my dog's life when I was doing everything to make those hours about how loved Audrey is and to let her die in peace on her terms..... Anyway, she texted me again to try to commiserate and "support" me but didn't apologize or even acknowledge when I told her  directly that I was most upset on Audrey's death day when anyone tried to derail me from making it about Audrey. And then I basically told her that I didn't need her sympathy, I was sad but as a believer in reincarnation and a precog, it was the many months of "last times" leading up to Audrey's death that hurt me worse than her actual death. And I didn't bite or let her use any of her openers to try to make it about her and then she just stopped when I reminded her that Audrey still visits me until she's ready to move on be born again so while I miss her physical presence, she's still checking in frequently

They can all three make other choices and find paths and fatelines to bring them back to meet up again with my path, but their past choices mean that I accept and do not feel the loss of letting them go down the paths they have chosen for themselves over the last year. I do not consider them under my protection or guidance down the paths of their choosing and until they become brighter versions of themselves again, I will not seek them out of my own free will volition -- they will have to choose to change their courses AND choose to seek me out again if they want to reconnect with me down future paths..

So far while in the hollows  I've only sacrificed people who've made their free will choices that leave no room for me in their present  lives or future life paths. I haven't (yet) tried to sacrifice anything while I'm in the hollows this time that are integral to my own soul's joy and that I can't replace. Only what I had already spent the time of playing Cassandra doing the shadow work to let go of while I still cared and the letting go hurt while it still cut deep to accept. Hopefully I won't let go anything that will diminish me the way giving up dancing diminished me... I haven't danced from my heart since my first precogs about Audrey. but that's different. I didn't sacrifice dance, i just haven't felt the joy in it...  

But just know about me to be extra cautious right now about in anyway making me think that hanging onto something I once loved or cherished is a hardship... it's easy for me to let go and sacrifice and leave what i should love and cherish if I weren't in the hollows where I feel nothing at all about it or about its absence.... Because in general, the things I have a tendency to sacrifice while in the hollows are the very things that almost always bring me joy and would help me to find my way back out of the hollows sooner to the place I normally exist in where all I see and feel are the sparkles of joy in the beauty that IS despite everything that would destroy it or keep it from ever being born.... 

[Post Title: Lyrics from the Fun song Some Nights ]

 My sweet little bear luck dragon emo Pisces pup passed away on Jan 21. She was in doggie diapers across the last couple days when she was too weak to stand. She spent most of her last two days laying across the threshhold of the kitchen and i slept laying on the kitchen floor letting her use my hand as a pillow and talking to her. 

 

She waited until just after the new moon to die but left me enough daylight to take her to my parents house (the house I grew up in) to bury her as the sun set through the gloaming. After she died, I cut off my braid with my athame (and then I evened out the egregiously uneven parts with my sewing shears in the kitchen) so I could bury the braid with her. Once a Greek soul, always a Greek soul -- you cut your hair off to bury with your loved ones and you pour wine (well in Audrey's case whiskey) on their grave/pyre, it's what you do. I didn't cut myself to show my grief, I'm not a barbarian.  I also buried with her a combined braid of her emo bang hair and the ends of mine I cut off the day she stopped eating -- I have one just like it for myself along with the collars/tags of every pet I've loved and lost and some more hair from Audrey. It's in my wooden box with the Celtic tree of life carved on it. 

I buried her in her og Packers jersey she had picked out for herself at a year old (her newer one is on a blue eyed stuffed polar bear that I sleep with)  and lay her in her old bed that she'd had since she was a puppy and would never let me replace no matter how many times I tried. She was buried with her two favorite toys, her huck and her snow frisbee that every time I took her outside I told her, "Remember, return with your shield or on it pup" which is why like any good Spartan she was buried with her shield. She was also buried with toys from her closest canine packmates: the rope of my parents old dog Samson (he was old when I got Audrey and died when she was only a couple years old), the Christmas bobo from my aunt and uncle's dog Jenna (she was 2.5 years old when I got Audrey as a puppy and they were young dogs together while my Uncle Steve brought her into work, she died when Audrey was 10), and the pink spikey ball of my parent's current dog Sophie (she's nearly 8 now, she sits by me stares at my desktop picture of Audrey whenever I'm at my desk at work.) I asked my mom for three pennies right before the burial, one for each eye and the third because dogs pay their tithes to Cerberus who has three heads, but he only asks for pennies not silver like Charon asks.

I did go to get my haircut fixed the following Weds.  But actually when Maggie saw me on Weds to cut it properly, she laughed because she said she never would have guessed looking at it that I did one of those improbable movie scenes where the heroine cuts her hair and next scene has a perfect bob. This was my haircut after I cut it:

This is it how it looked after Maggie cut it properly for me:

Anyway. I miss her but I knew it was coming. As a precog, I always deal with grieving and mourning out of sync with events. The last time realizations started in the Spring, every time I had the Knowing that she and I would never again do something we had loved doing. I tried to fight it, said it was just shadows of fear from my old prophecy I had told Mikaela when she was six and having a sad about Audrey (who was then four) dying some day and I said, "Don't worry love. She'll live to over 14.5 but not 15 -- unless I'm really good and can get her through a crisis and then she'll live to be 21.5." And Mikaela instantly said, "Well you're stubborn and I can't imagine you not winning anything you set your heart on. So 21.5 it is." And I patiently reminded her, "Only if I can get her to 15 sweetling." She's been reminding me since Audrey turned 14 "you promised 21.5." And I've had to remind her, "Only if I can get her past her 15th birthday."  That said, I spent most of the last year fighting it, trying to find another way.  I was pouring so much energy into healing her and keeping her healthy pain free that I spent much of last year in chronic exhaustion and constant over-extending my gifts migraines. It was Audrey's choice when and how she wanted to be done. Starting around Samhain, Audrey told me I was harming myself pouring so much of my life force into her that she started refusing to let me pour my life force into her to heal her, she'd pull away whenever I tried and if I persisted she would get up and leave the room to make it clear she meant it. She would let me take her pain from her, but she stopped letting me heal her or run a full body chakra energy reset.  It was just after Christmas she started refusing hard kibble and she stayed alive for 11 days on sheer will power and my energy after she stopped eating entirely. On the 8th day of her hunger strike she insisted on walking all the way down to Tiedemann Pond so we could just sit together by the water. The last two weeks watching her dying was harder than her death, even though she wasn't in pain since I took all her pain from her but it was harder at every single "last time" knowing than when her time met up with her.

I'm still very emo with my nails painted black and wearing mostly black all the time.  I'm still very deep "in the hollows" as I called it when I was a kid, the place where I go to not feel anything in order to not feel my own sorrow so deep I could drown in it. It's a place where I can't cry and where my smiles don't touch my eyes. It's how I cope, until I reach the point my grief doesn't feel like I could drown in it. This is me tonight:

Like I said, I'm very emo "in the hollows" still. Even when my little emo pup visits me. (She visits me all the time at work and in the car and while I go do things -- but at home due to my warding she can only visit me in dream space when Artemis Britomartis or The Morrigan brings her to visit. Which one of the two goddesses most protective of me at this time has done every time I sleep. And Audrey knows she has a standing invitation to spend her next life with me, either as my child (should I have children before I get so old I biologically can't) or again as a beloved pet. But if as a pet, I reminded her to send me dream visions of her and precogs of our future together to be certain I know to look for her and find her to adopt her. She's not yet ready for her next life, she's still in soul review and watching over those she loved until she knows when/where she wants to be born next. And she visits me as often as she can. Her soul has always been devoted to me like that, even if she did make a better dog in this life than she made a husband last life....

The other thing to know about me when I'm in the hollows is that because I don't feel much of anything, it's VERY easy for me to sacrifice things I once loved if I feel I need to because it's not currently bringing me joy.  This is a warning -- if you make choices that make me feel I need to cut you out from my life or from reaching me, I will. Your choices are yours to make, but if you push me to the point of giving you up, sacrificing anyone or anything out is easy.

Also. In May I will be bringing my sister's family's dog Waffles home to live with me.  They have been done since just after I left from my Nov/Dec visit when Waffles decided to destroy her bed (and every bed they bought her) after I left until they put the blanket I had been sleeping with in her kennel with her. They've been doing the back and forth for over a year, my parents planned two separate roadtrips out there specifically planned around bringing Waffles back and then they changed their mind last minute. This time is different though, especially since they're all moving out in August for a house renno to add a third floor on their house. Also they're paying for my flight out there on May 2 and they'll be renting a car for me to drive back with the dog at some point to end the trip.  The only thing is, i don't yet have anyone to drive back with me and that stretch through the badlands is not safe for a girl by herself -- more women go missing along the highways through the Dakotas than anywhere else in the US. Everyone I've asked isn't available in May or is on the end of the roadtrip not in the Seattle area...except maybe Alana who I asked first because she's who I first precogged on that drive with me a year and a half ago. Only May isn't while Skerryvore is in Washington so I don't know if there's a good reason for her to fly out to Washington other than to accompany me on that drive back.... I'll figure out someone I trust to drive back with me and Waffles. Before May. Nancy could join me in June, and she would be good choice for it, but Waffles has a miserable existence of having her physical needs met but never being allowed to come upstairs or trusted or properly loved or accepted into the family... My sister is a cat person and doesn't trust the dog with the kids because Waffles is young excitable so my sister won't let her lick them in case she puppy nips them and Waffles spends far too much of her life in a kennel whenever they don't want to deal with her... It's a horrible situation and Waffles has tried so hard to do everything right and please them and just wants to be loved.... And the only time she gets her energy properly run off and she gets loved is when I visit or when my parents visit.... And from what I understand, it's been worse since I left because of how Waffles acted out over me leaving. bad enough my sister threatened to send her air cargo, in winter, because it's not safe for anyone to drive out to get Waffles...after my parents and I have bent backwards to try to rehome Waffles to her pack in Wisconsin who love her and are dog people It's a bad situation... and after I told Audrey about it, she got so excited for Waffles coming to live with us -- she wouldn't let Spock or Sophie use the new dog beds I bought Audrey at home and work because Audrey insisted they're for Waffles when she gets here. And then Audrey would pick out toys she thought Waffles would like put them in the bed waiting for Waffles to arrive.

To conclude, this is the polar bear in Audrey's stitched jersey which I washed when I washed her a couple days before her death day:

Sometimes, especially when it's laying and you can't see the head it looks like her in my bed. And the last couple weeks I hug that bear to fall asleep right now, the jersey still smells like the dog shampoo, as Audrey Pupburn would smell right after getting showered.

Last night's Packers loss, it's had me unable to sleep and deep in my feels because without them going into the playoffs, it may be the last time I ever get to watch a game with my Packers pup who picked out her own first jersey at her first Christmas and insisted she wanted it more than food and that it had to be the Packers jersey, not any other team and not any of the other shirts or outfits but the team jersey... And she gets so excited as soon as the weather gets football season crisp for her to wear her jersey and so depressed when the season ends and I switch her out of it. This year, I already decided that no matter how long or short the season, and no matter how sad seeing it makes other people for the season being over, Audrey will get to wear her jersey all the rest of winter. Because if she dies before the Spring, I want her to die wearing it and to be buried in it. Weirdly enough, Audrey insisted on needing to be a Packers pup the same season Brett retired and Aaron became starter -- with all the talk about if this might be his last season, with the Packers and playing football at all, it's making it hit even harder that Audrey may not make it to her next birthday let alone to next Packers season.....  

I mean, I'm very deep in my feels lately, all of December and January I'm in my feels about my dog's mortality. Ever since she stopped having her normal interest in food and I took her off the Prednisone because it was making her so depressed she didn't even care about the fresh snow. And baby girl LOVES the snow, it's always been one of the absolute favorite things ever. 25 hours after I decided to stop the Prednisone, just at the point it was cleared out her system, she got so happy and excited about the snow fall and she was back to her happy self instead of the numbed not caring depressed her.... And the thing is, she has so much joy in life (but especially snow, she's so upset it's all melted and the lack of snow is definitely not helping my sorrowing) and so much more energy than she's had since she got so sick over the summer from the salmonella peas -- but she's still hardly eating anything at all. And I KNOW corticosteroids depress her body's own production and it can be a month or more before her appetite comes back and I know that some of the lingering side effects like upset to her go can also take a month to heal.... But she's just eating so little... Sometimes when her breathing in her sleep gets shallow, I'll go check on her just to make sure she's still alive. And I'm also losing weight getting gaunt in the face right now since I've been pouring my energy into her to reduce inflammation and to block any tumor growths/shrink them and to reset her endocrine system and truth is I've hardly been eating much (I haven't gone grocery shopping or bought myself any food since I got back from Seattle.... Everything I've eaten has been something bought for me or made from what little stores I had in my pantry and freezer....) And I know that Audrey worries when I don't eat, she will refuse to eat until after she sees me eat when the ADHD hits strong and i forget to eat for too long... But it's more than that this time because she's refusing a lot of her treats as not of interest to her and not eating her kibble much at all, though she will eat pieces of pulled beef and steak and salmon and veggies off my plate. She's also generally been consistent about eating beef liver crunchies and the Stella & Chewies 93% beef and organs freeze dried meat mixers (which can count as meal substitutes but she not eating enough of it to count.) She's just not eating enough and she's feeling frail and I'm worried and facing her mortality. 

She doesn't have a blockage of any sort, ultra sound didn't indicate it and she's still pooping. It could be pancreatitis from the Prednisone or other gi inflammation, it could be diabetes though her blood sugar levels were fine her last CBC as was her liver and kidney function. It could be her age causing inappetence especially as taste/smell decrease with age, (and since dogs can get COVID, it's possible she has been exposed to it again and so food doesn't smell or taste good to her right now), it could be an internal bleed or cancer but it would take more extensive ultrasounds and MRIs to find that out and it wouldn't help to know other than for considering euthanasia because I refuse to put her on chemo drugs that would take away her remaining appetite and joie de vivre and  she's not a good candidate for surgeries between her age and her anemia/platelet issues... I wonder if she's having allergies to poultry after years of having issue with duck (but loving it) so I'm buying her kibbles and soft foods and treats with no chicken because that's what she'll eat when she will eat..... It's unclear WHAT her inappetence issues are, but she's old and everything is only palliative and making sure she has good quality of life anyway when a dog is as old as she is.... 

And it doesn't MATTER how damn much I tell myself or anyone else that the price of adopting a fur baby is the loss of them or that since she'll be 15 years old in March and I've had her since she was 12 weeks old, I've already had more time with her than most pet owners ever get and I know I'm spoiled and I should be grateful for all the time I've had.... But she's my baby girl who I got as a handful of puppy and she's the first animal I've ever had deeply bonded to just me (as opposed to my family growing up) and she's always been such a chow hound we joke about her having an inner lab and so it's so hard on me every time she refuses food.....because when a dog has no interest in food, it's usually the indication they're nearing the end.... And I just.... I already feel the brink of the hollows form in me at just the though of her absence from my life... It's there waiting for me. And every time I think how she if we don't get more snow soon she might never get to play and eat snow again or she might never get excited for touchdown treats for the Packers games next season or how maybe I should cancel her BarkBox before it renews in February or how soon I might never get to hold her and  cuddle her ever again, I just start crying and I can't help it or stop even by finding myself she's still here right now and I need to appreciate all the time and snuggles and walks and joy in food when I can get her to eat while she's still here. 

It's all the things that may be the last time with her and it's just breaking my heart making me cry so many oceans of tears I feel like I'm drowning in my hurt and grief. And I'm trying not to eat it bleed down any of my empathy bonds or show in my eyes when I make me go see people (mostly my parents and Crissy and Mikaela and Sarah and other coworkers. I ended my meet cute dating fling with the soccer player when Audrey started getting worse even with me being home now because I was too destabilized in my sorrow and anxiety over her and every time I wasn't with her I was regretting the time lost that I could never have back because it just feels so finite right now. Which wasn't fair to him, but also you can't bring someone into that deep end of grieving heart break on such a short term of acquaintance.) But it's always there right now threatening to spill over and out of my control and drown not just me but anyone with an empathy bond to me or who's empath enough to hear me broadcasting my sorrow and loss and I magnify all my emotions loud if I don't control them.... If you reach for me down the bond right now all you will get is deep oceans of sadness and impending loss and emptiness. 

And the thing is, other than the not eating enough, Audrey is doing really well and she's so happy and has souch joy in life and seeing everyone. And she's super cuddly snuggly again, which she stopped being while on Prednisone and in addition to Prednisone, aloofness is a common side effect for dogs. By every obvious indication other than the inappetence and how frail that's making her, Audrey is doing amazing and everyone remains surprised whenever I say her age because even if they'd guess senior dog they think maybe 8 years old.... And I myself have always jokignly insisted since she was a puppy that she would live to be 21.5 years young, and my Pisces pup is not yet 15..... And that wasn't a precog, just something I've always said about her. Just as I've said to her since she was a small puppy that if she still wants to be with me after this life of he's ends, she can find me again to be my dog or my child if I ever have children. It's not her soul that won't share time and life with me, but I will miss snuggling into her fur holding her and this personality version of her as joyous highly intelligent little bear luck dragon tomboy of a Pisces pup princess deeply soul bonded to me.... 

And yet, when I can't get her to eat enough or when she feels more frail to me than the day before, I keep thinking of all the things I'm not ready to be the last time I have with her and it starts me crying and feeling the future loss of her so keenly.... I've cried more tears since the start of the year over the potential imminence of my dog's mortality being sooner than I'm ready for than I cried tears in all of 2020-2022..... I don't think anyone understands how much I've been crying over the thought of losing my baby girl and all the "never agains" and having to bring her wrapped in a sheet or towel for my father and I to bury her in the backyard along with all our other fur babies who have passed away..... Every time I think on these things it starts me grieving and crying because I know that even if not this year, they're coming and they will happen and I will be deep in the hollows over the loss of my sweet puppy child.

All night since the loss I've been crying off and on about next Packers season maybe not having her with me and how I'm going to handle living in Wisconsin when every Packers jersey will make me mourn my dog. I'm crying about it again now while writing just thinking about how she might never see another Packers game now or get a Packers touchdown dance treat while I'm writing, even though she's curled up next to me in her bed using my left foot as her pillow in deep happy contented sleep. And it's stupid as it is inevitable for me to be drowning in such sorrow and sense of loss NOW while she's here with me..... But her not eating enough getting frail is pushing me to contemplate her mortality and all of the "last times" with her and how few and finite my moments remain to have her in my life at all.... Because I know the moments I'm seeing are coming for me even though I don't know if they are this year or in a future year. And those with the gift of prophecy always grieve and mourn out of sync with the flow of time's passage.... 

I am grateful not to have many concerts or major travel plans or even fest season holding much for me this coming year.  As much as my heart breaks about being with her or the one it find her when her time comes, it devastates me far more to think of her dying in my absence knowing that I am the center of her world and how desperately she misses me and longs for me and gets depressed in my absence.... I just wish she would eat so it wouldn't be so omnipresent with me thinking about all the last times she and I will get to do certain things together... Because if she can get through this month, I think she'll be back to her self-regulated pre Prednisone levels of health and with my healing her she will get better enough to still have years of life in her - but I'm really uncertain if she can make it through this month and then to her next birthday. I don't think she could without me here spending so much time with her and pouring souch energy into her.... 

But yeah, if you've been getting waves of ineffable deep sorrow and grief and loss that you feel like you'll drown in since just after the New Year, that would be me facing the mortality of my dog because she's hardly eating much at all right now and it's got me thinking about how I'm approaching all of the last times with her for everything she loves brings us joy and how finite my remaining time is with her and me acknowledging to myself how deep into the hollows (where the numbness of nothing touches my heart protects me from drowning in my grieving) I'll go when her absence is real not just somewhere in the future nebulous. That's me, that's my grief at the potential of these being the last times and the heartache on the horizon. If you don't want to be swamped by sorrows, I'm sorry but my only advice is that if you can't shut off the bond to me you at least refrain from reaching down it if you can't swim in the depths of feeling grief and loss completely as deep as it goes.... 

I don't have any songs or music for this grieving or to help lighten it for me. And just like I won't be able to see anyone wearing a Packers jersey without wanting to cry after my baby girl dies, it will be many many long years before I'll be able to listen to Billy Joel songs without thinking of her and breaking down. Which given my deep love for both the Packers and Billy Joel is going to be hard on me, no matter how near or far my baby girl's death day is.... It would be nice to have music to turn to when I hurt like this, I have in the past but right now there's no songwriter or vocalist who fills those holes in my heart and soothes me when I'm upset like this.  There were, but, for reasons I've stated in the past, those songs no longer bring me joy or peace as they did. I can't love your songs if I can't respect or admire you as a human....if you cross that and don't make things right, you take away any comfort present or future that your music could ever hold for me. Even when I need it most toa other my heart's aching, the songs I once loved or could have loved won't work any magic on me so long as I can't respect the creator of it. (But I'd give just about anything to be able to turn to Meaning of It All on repeat right now for some soul comfort while I'm grappling with the 50ft waves of this grief that feels like it might drown me in the futures that will be but aren't yet.)

Audrey's holding on, in hope and joy despite her body failing her, for something or someone. But I don't know what or why. All I know is that other than whatever has her holding on still, she wants to be near me and with me and if she wakes up to find I'm not nearby she sets off to find me or to keep watching the door for my return.