I don't have much to say right now. Now that I'm sitting here, I'm sure I can write lots of things here using lots of words and run on sentence-thought fragments because air sun sign with ADHD, but I don't actually have much that I feel I need to say, if that makes sense...

Regarding the subject of the recent posts this new year, I find myself at an inner place of balance and with all that strong love pouring in down the bond just the same no matter what the overthinking might be doing. The strong flow of the bond has been just a constant constant regardless the tumult and analysis/overthinking inside me. 

And tonight my head is currently quiet so I don't feel the need for lots of words to try to understand my own self or to try to explain to anyone else to understand it.... My head is very much in a bit of this aloof place, "Look, I've said my piece, and I stand by it. If you need to wait on evidence to sort this out make sense of it, then we'll wait. But allow me my skepticism until then and don't say I didn't warn you."

And my heart just doesn't need words, it's just sitting there in its corner basking in the love pouring in and pouring back love down the bond just as strongly as it's coming in, all happy and smug certainty, "I know what I know and what I know IS. You'll see." 

So i don't have any more words born out of my overthinking or over feeling or uncertainty inside me what I should be listening to -- the truce is holding inside me around "either this is too important to fuck up or it doesn't matter at all, either way no action will make things clearer -- so let's wait and see for evidence and what he has to say about his own truths before we jump to any conclusions, let alone leap into impulsive actions we can't undo."

 And right now I don't have much else in words to share about. Um. My practical real world? No new news about the neighbors downstairs... which maybe means I should poke at my agent ask if I should be doing anything but the whole situation just exhausts me dealing with it and them and worrying now about everything they do downstream trying to blame it on me upstairs... I'm just tired by that now that they've shown their colors that way. Also. Polar vortex coming down (and no snow to protect the sleeping plants underground so I'm very scared about the perennials not surviving but I'll find out in Spring based on what does and doesn't come up, just like everyone else) the next few days then a warmup then even colder. So my plan on Tuesday into Wednesday is to stay home hygge it up, lay a fire in the hearth, make a big batch of chili and stay home cozy as cozy can be.  Packers lost today which is sad, but also it means that football playoffs won't be much impacting my calendar. Next shows for me are symphony on Friday and then down to Chicago on the 19th to see Byrne Brothers at IAHC.  Then it's going to get stupidly stupidly cold the two days following during which I'd normally stay home hygge it up but my grandma actually has appointments both days that are already rescheduled from when she got COVID so can't/shouldn't get rescheduled despite how cold it will be... (podiatry afternoon on 20, optometry morning on 21.) Perhaps I can push the return of the polar vortex a bit later but with the rising hot air off the fires on the coast, there's a lot of volatility pushing around the jet stream and the polar vortex chill...  Weather witching is trickier and trickier even to hold things steady let alone push them around within the new climate paradigms.... And my cat hasn't been eating as much as he should the last couple days, which happens with ckd especially when they get nauseous from toxin buildups since the kidneys are so damaged in ckd kitties, so I'm worrying a bit about him but not enough (yet) to call the vet or take him in or ask for a prescription of liquid ghrelin (hunger hormone) as an appetite stimulant for him -- but getting close enough to worried to consider stopping by the vet to pick up some kidney care soft food to see if that can tempt him with him not eating kibble or softened kibble recently... On verra. But also, I swear to G-d, if he keeps going downhill and dies on Jan 21, the same day just two years later that Audrey Pupburn died, my heart is going to hurt so hard over that grieving.... Later in the week, I do have to go over to my grandmas old place with my parents see what (if anything) that remains I'm interested in now that the kids have had their opportunities to make choices/demands before things end up heading to thrift store charity shops. And I need to take care of that damn headlight and oil change and tire rotation for the car -- and decide what I'm going to do about switching from the Scion to the black Prius... Before we get too late in the Spring. because right after I got back, i found that the dial for the temperature is stuck all the way on heat and it doesn't feel like "needs wd-40" stuck it feels like "if you force this you will snap a piece of plastic that renders this entirely useless" but while I'm still in blasting heat at varying intensities NOW, it's only a few months before even defrosting the front windshield will definitely NOT be wanting heat... before we even talk about summertime heat, lol.  And I'm over 120,000 miles on it which is quite a lot... Also the black prius at work isn't really being used or driven much at all. I hate dealing with this sort of adulting stuff... I'm not interested in shiny new cars or trying to find the best deals or whatever... it's not me. I want things that will work and last and can be patched up kept going serviceable. My soul ain't built for throw away culture new new new buy buy buy constantly consumerist shiny shopping.

 Anyway. Unrelated to that practical quotidian stuff I need to put some energy into and deal with now that I'm all the way better not even residual cough or anything... But damn, Astro Poets Horoscope coming in fire and on point (yet again) this coming week on the THEME -- I think we're getting just about a year now of Astro Poets being on a theme and intertwined mirroring back and forth between Libra and Pisces poetry horoscopes for the coming week... It feels a bit like being told "How many times do I gotta repeat myself for you to get it and believe me?! Okay, here we go again. Listen up!"  It actually made me laugh really hard when I read the ones for this week because it was such a "you listening yet? Not yet? Okay then, a bit louder for those in the back then. ARE YOU LISTENING YET?!"

"Week of 1/12 in Libra: The scope of it is the imagination. The peaceful feeling is the stars. What sways in the trees is everything. Love rebounds. Love calls itself over and over again."

"Week of 1/12 in Pisces: Some pretty song. Why not sing it now. What not feel what you must. Call a friend or two. Call a friend to tell you what to say now."

I mean, c'mon. That's pretty funny being so on theme as the advice for the coming week, right?

P. S. 5:05am addendum: 

Spocky is eating his kibble! Of his own volition and quite a bit of it! Not kid kidney care kibble (which is bigger sized) but some of his remaining Fromm kibble which the vet and I agreed that I can leave out for him as well until it's gone. (He's motivated by human food but has never eaten cat food to excess or been overweight so he's a free feeder always has food out which I refill whenever things seem to be getting low, so the level in his food dishes is more than he would eat if limited portion sizes at set times. It makes it a little tougher to gauge the amount he's eating but still obvious when he stops or isn't eating enough to require refilling.). Anyway, him eating this morning is a relief for me from the worry I've had about his food levels not really going down very much and him not pooping in his box (only peeing) the last few days.

 Really I ought to ask myself why I always come back to spending so much of my energy and time going round and round in circles on questions I can't answer and on such a muddle of feelings about a man who most likely doesn't even know my name in this life.... Because either the bond pulls on both of us taut like a string waiting to be plucked in which case all my overthinking confusions just amplify resonances of uncertainty and confusion in him and muddy up any clear sounding truth he might have OR it's something that only exists in my head in which case any and everything pertaining to it is a waste of any amount of investment I put into it. Either it matters so much that it deserves my faith in it to be as clear hearted and clear headed as possible OR it matters so little that I need to chuck it all out to focus my energy/time into something productive or at least useful to myself. 

There's no in between on this. Either it matters so much I shouldn't be fucking it up by doubting him/the bond between us or it matters so little I need to stop feeding it because it consumes too much of my life force spent in dithering about in circles over it....

And recognizing that truth should make it easier...but somehow it doesn't.... Because I can't make up my mind to either, there's no evidence to support one over the other, and it's like Schrodinger's thought experiment with both conclusions existing simultaneously equally likely and no way for me to open the damn box to learn the truth of what is....

And giving up on him seeking me only leads to distracting myself or eventually losing myself in the hollows of the hopeless empty spaces. And believing in him seeking me is all euphoric til doubts creep into me and I start questioning if it's all a delusional lie I tell myself and nothing to do with his truth -- and then I just feel the most intense need to know the truth whether I like it or not. What matters is to find the truth....  And I can't think or feel my way to learning this truth and waiting on learning it has taken so damn long. And it just makes me feel so stuck..... And feeling stuck makes me want to do something, anything, no matter how idiotic or working at cross purposes to what I genuinely want, in the hopes it might get me unstuck.

*sigh* Why is my brain so stupid full of doubts about him? And why is my heart so stubborn full of certainty about him? And why can't I seem to ever have anything concrete to hold onto as a truth solid enough to use as a foundational corner stone to build into the future that comes next? And why does it feel sometimes like the battle is just me trying to choose between self sabotage or delusional thinking -- and that in the worst case scenarios even that only matters to me affects nobody else at all? Why can't I just learn the truth of his isness on this -- and in the aftermath of that knowing, all the whys and hows and what ifs can sort themselves out once the truth is understood?

Maybe I should go make some coffee and food.  If nothing else, it should distract to calm at least a little bit the agitation and urgency in me about wanting an answer to know the truth NOW. Because I'm certainly not getting anywhere to soothing that with words or thoughts or feelings of my own creation right now....

And through all that wanting to know NOW.... My truest truth of all is that I wish he were here so I could wrap my arms around him in the biggest "never letting go of you" hug and tell him, "I love you. I see you. I believe in you. I'm proud of you. And I know whatever you set your heart on you will make real. And I'm trying to hear you and what that means for you." And to keep telling him those truths of mine until he's certain of them knows them as deeply as I know them.

 It's probably worth me stating:

1) Nothing in the physical quotidian has shifted at this time, there is nothing in the physical everyday 3d world that I know of that has brought our lives even the slightest bit closer together.

2) None of the issues created six years ago have been resolved or even faced/discussed or even shown any shifts towards healing, and this is probably the biggest source of questioning/fear/mistrust inside me that create the uncertainty and hesitation in regards to reacting from what my inmost self desires/feels. It remains the source of my logical rational conscious brain ego getting rather nihilistic saying, "but there is no place for me and no welcome in his life and what matters most to him he has built his life around, so I need to let him go and give this up." And I don't have an answer or solution to either the mess that was made OR the streak of fatalistic martyrdom that rises up in me trying to be practical about reality as it is in this nexus of time/space as a consequence of these third party choices that were made.

3) I refer as "shared dream space" to the realms of shamanic woodlands/caverns/shorelines/deserts/arctic snowscapes where I encounter old gods/goddesses, fey, souls seeking me in their animistic soul version that transcends any given body/life because it's a place of wanderings and meeting and lessons and prophetic visions of things I can't/don't see in my waking self hours. And also because what happens there is true isn't just my own personal dream space where I only have lucid dreams or memories of past selves. BUT the shamanic "shared" dream space realm where other souls reach me in vision forms doesn't mean it's properly shared. I don't know that.... Maybe it is and maybe it isn't, I quite honestly don't know. I call it "shared" because it's the place in dreams where my eternal higher self encounters and dialogues with other eternal higher selves, but I don't know if they remember/experience the encounters as i do in a proper sharing of events/memories/dreams. I only know the deeper truths I learn there and who can reach me in that space but i don't KNOW if the other souls I encounter there ALSO experience the same shared dream space truth revelations or if this is a product of my subconscious and higher self communication with other ascended/higher selves. I just don't know, I've never talked to anyone I've encountered there about these shamanic vision dream lessons and if they experience them when I do and when I meet up with them in "shared" dream space. I DO know that the fairfolk only meet up with me there at certain times of alignment in the seasons/astronomy and usually for specific reasons BUT the old gods/goddesses can always find me there any time they want be summoned at any time (though they won't always come when called, they're not pets) AND however it works with the bond between us, the polar bear is the one consistent incarnating soul that can ALWAYS reach me find me in dream space IF he wants to find me there and we sleep at the same times.  That's a just him thing. Whether he experiences/remembers the shared dream space vision dreams as well I don't know, but I do know that any time his soul/higher self reaches for me tries to find me that way with messages or things I want to know or just out of longing for me (as well as when there are things I need to observe/come to terms with in his choices) he is always on the paths I wander even if I myself didn't have any goal in the shamanic dream space that I was heading toward, I was just wandering through it....  I don't know that there's anyone I could ask about it other than my polar bear to find out if he also experiences the shared dream space dreams when I experience them, and that's a weird thing to ask when there's no real lines of communication open between us in the 3d quotidian lives as we have been living them....

4) I don't actually know what he wants for his life or if I'm any part of it. He's never actually told me. All I have is trying to balance between inner KNOWING (which could just be delusional lying to oneself) and dreams versus logic based rationalizing the absence of anything more concrete..... Which are all forms of assumptions and I do know that and recognize it's bad to act/react from assumptions. But I don't have anything else more concrete to work with to know what it is he wants for himself and would choose, and I recognize it just as I recognize the unknowingness and the assumptions of what I have to work with creates volatility in my action/responses because they're assumptions not solid evidence/knowledge and I don't have anything more concrete to work from.

5) Of all the things that filter through my inner soundscape, what plays inside me in his voice most often (especially in the morning hours) is just the fragment, "Don't you know I dream about you?" and just that fragment. Not sure if it's his truth or my brain feeding me what it wants me to hear/pay attention to... I don't know why but I do know is and it happens WAY more often than mere chance. Even when I'm telling myself to let him go and not give energy/attention to him because he's not in my actual life, there's still lots of mornings that it swims through my inner soundscapes for no reasons whatsoever.

I guess.... the best I can explain where I'm at is that... I can't help loving him wanting the best brightest happiness for him that he can find and choose and make his, that's just an isness truth about me BUT I don't know what that is for him or what it is he wants or how that manifests for him in his 3d lived experiences... So the best way for me to feel that, especially given the other variables in play (mostly the absence of real world ties between us in our daily lives and the bridges burned by third party interference/choices six years ago that's never healed or even been acknowledged/discussed) is to trust that he knows himself and his own needs/wants/desires better than I or anyone else could know these things and for me to let go of my own selfishness and desire and expectations and hopes and preconceptions, just accept that what is is and what will be will be but without knowing more I can't take action toward that end other than letting go of what's not for me not in my life in order to discover what IS for me, what DOES choose to be in my life.

Which is maybe unfair.... but it's the best way I have come up with for me to navigate the unknowns of this all and the pull of the bond between our souls and the fact that the complications were created around me not being welcomed/wanted by others in parts of HIS life (not him being unwelcome in any aspects of my life) therefore it's for him to decide what in his life he DOES or DOES NOT want me in because at the end of the day it's his life and his choices that are the unknown questions here. Because. What right do I have to try to fight or advocate for me being in his life despite what other people have chosen/done unless it is also born from what HE wants/chooses/needs for his own life? I don't have that sort of hubris in me.... Not without knowing that he wants me there and chooses to have me in it because that's his choice so my want isn't just me being selfish in the face of what others (who maybe know him better than I do after all) chose for him. My selfish wants/choices aligning with his wants/choices would be enough for me to hold tighter and to fight for my place in his life, but only if it's what he would choose for himself for his own life. But not if it's just my selfish desires making the choice... Only if his choice and my choice are the same do I feel I'd have the right to hold on to him... And  his choices are HIS choice(s), not mine, not his sister's, not the bands, not anyone's but his..... And I don't know what his choices are, so it's for me to hold space without projecting anything of my own assumptions/ego/needs to learn that (or not learn it) as he decides to make his choices known. 

No matter what dream space may tell me, it's for him to make clear what he desires/chooses for himself not for me or anyone else to try to pressure him or project onto him our desires/choices that our egos might think best for him. It's about what he decides to choose for himself. Anything else is inauthentic and choosing a wrong headed path if it's not what he wants or would choose for himself and his life....

*shrugs* Maybe it's not fair... But I know that I will always choose him, in any life, if he's among the options available and open to me. I know my truth and my choices if he's among the options for me and a shared life path. I know myself and I know my choices and I know what I will do when faced with hard  choices where I can't have what I want just have to choose the best of not great options. What I don't know is his truth, his choices in this life. But I trust him to know better than anyone else could what his truest self desires/needs and that whatever he chooses will be his truth in any given space/time for what he needs in that time/space, no matter what I or anyone else think/feel about his choices. I trust him to know himself and to always come back to his truest self, even if it sometimes requires him taking the time to go back to finding out what his truest self IS outside what others have told him to be or to desire or to do.  And it's from that place of trust that I sit in the  void of "I will give you space/time to define your choices for yourself and chase wherever that leads you -- but until this is made clear to me what your choices are, I'm going to let you be free and focus on what IS in my life and what chooses to share space/time with me." Because as long as he's not wanting me enough to choose having me in his life, then my energy/love/time is better invested elsewhere in the places where I AM desired and chosen and wanted. For both our sakes and what's genuinely in the best interests for both of us.

P.S. Natally, I have my Mars and Neptune conjunct at the exact same degree and it's right near my MC in Sagittarius -- which means that my will to action is very closely tied to and motivated by my intuition/dreams/spirituality/delusions in a truth seeking way and my highest career/external world path is as the philosopher asking why and going for the big picture unexplored areas. It's a wyrd natal placement, even my birthday twin best friend has her exact Mars-Neptune conjunction near her ascendant but not at the midheaven -- I've never met anyone else with Mars-Neptune-midheaven conjunction like mine...(Incidentally Neptune conjunct your midheaven is one of the strong psychic/empath/energy working placements.) But anyway, given this truth about my natal placements, especially with Libra sun Pisces rising seeing every side of things decision paralysis, if you want to move me to action you have to engage my dreamy/spiritual/intuitive side fuel it with optimism and hope. That's really the spark of ignition to motivate me to action for my life path, especially in pursuit of my own desires and even understanding my own desires/motives.

Look into my eyes, You will see, what you mean to me. Search your heart, search your soul, When you find me there, you'll search no more. Don't tell me it's not worth trying for. You can't tell me it's not worth dying for. You know it's true. Everything I do, I do it for you.

I would just like to be very VERY clear for the record.... This is the strongest and steadiest and certain and most constantly powerfully heady and deep the flow of love down the bond that it's been in a really long while, probably close on a year since I have anything this comparably strong a tide (and then it wasn't for this long and steady, that's probably been most like since autumn 23 when he suddenly broke back through to reach me and I can't even remember how long ago it was before that.) And I don't know why, I just know is. 

Also. It's waking AND dreamspace right now that's he's so steady and certain and strong in his love reaching me. I did have a rather important polar bear dream in the last week or so since I got back home again, I don't remember exactly which sleep (sorry but I don't -- being sick I was sleeping a lot more than usual so my body could heal so the sleeps all rather blend together now that I'm on this side of convalescence.) It also wasn't the only him reaching me while I slept over the last week.  But this particular one, probably worth sharing about. Because, it's probably the most confidently certain in himself that I can remember him being in a long time (maybe ever) in dream space to an extent that verged on sassy but in a sweet sort of way. So in the dream, he was just waiting there patiently on the path I was walking in the dream, I just went around a curve in the path and he was just right there without me having any warning or anything he was there, just around the curve and so sudden that I would have walked full force right into him if he hadn't been expecting/waiting for me and just caught me in a big bear hug. And before I could react or say anything with the sudden unexpectedness of it, he just started in with his message, "I heard you before and I understand your point. But, do you WANT me? Right now? Because if you do, then stop pushing me away, stop walking away -- stop giving up before I can convince you I know myself this time. Stay with me long enough for me to show you why you can trust that THIS time there IS a path forward together. I just need to know, do you still want me?" And it just so startled me broke through all the overthinking conclusions connected right to to the core of me, soul to soul, and I just started crying into him finally able to tell him (rather brokenly. "Yes. yes of course I want you. I always do. Trying to let you go and walk another path without you is the hardest thing I've ever made myself do. Every time. No matter the reasons. This is what I always want."

And he just lit up the brightest most luminous soul glow and hugged me tighter stroked my hair and gave the biggest sigh, "Good. That was what I needed to know. I needed to know that hadn't changed. That was the only doubt I had that I could create my path to you and with you from here."

And so at the dream space soul level (NOT the head vs heart level, which is an awake me overthinking mess still) I made the choice of love and trust and that, at least in shared dream space when he finds me there, to choose him for as long as he's choosing me to move forward from here. 

Which probably made the honesty about the overthinking head vs. heart trying to figure out how not to be hurt/repeat painful patterns much more confusing out of left field-y given how easy and certain the soul level communication was upon reaching me like that. It's not so much contradictory, one is just more higher self certainty level communication and the messiness of translating that down to the real world conscious ego fear-listening "which lesson am I supposed to be learning form all this?! I don't want to have to keep getting beat up over the same lessons I'm not learning" place.

I have more practical quotidian things I could (should?) write about. But also, I'm tired suddenly hit me like woah -- and as I get more and more tired I can feel down the bond his soul reaching out already asleep full of love and my own soul response reaching back to him because in sleep it's all so much easier and possible right now.

I'm gonna finish up here at work and get myself headed home andcuddel into that love pouring in down the bond and to snuggle down in bed with my fur babies sprawled across me like my own personal weighted blanket (they're STILL constant velcro mode) for me to get some sleep, perchance to dream.

P.S. Yes. I know how serious those fires are in California. I precogged them and how bad this gets before it gets better, but they haven't had me panicky like Hurricane Helene did. Even with cousins still in the L.A. area (though one of them is moving back home very soon and the other travels for work a lot) who I haven't heard from to make sure they're safe. (It's mostly Malibu area so far, but also, it's bad and those winds mean it will move FAST and unexpectedly...) Which is curious... I still haven't figured out why that one had me reacting so strongly to its imminence of threat even though I was far away from it and none of the precogs had shifted of the natural disaster damages and I knew of nobody I love have empath cords with who was there.

[Post title: lyric to the Bryan Adams song Everything I Do (I Do It For You). That song came on the radio on Sunday when I was driving home from work after the Packers game and going out for my da's birthday dinner. and when I heard it on the radio, firstly it made me go all sappy soft weak in the knees then secondly it reminded me of the polar bear, especially the way he's been showing up in dream space since I got back home and in particular his very determined message in that dream I told part of in this post. And then the song keeps playing on loop inside me head whenever it's quiet around me, only the version I'm earworms with is him covering it which is something I've never actually heard with my ears but my brain pieced together from knowing the song and the timbres of his voice and his piano playing style and my brain insists is a cover of this song that SHOULD exist so in my head it does now even if that's the only place it's real....]

 So I was thinking.... (Because I'm always thinking, sometimes I'm even (over)thinking about thinking and how/why I'm thinking the way I'm thinking about thinking. That's a joke, but also only kinda because sometimes it feels all too true, lol) There were some things that I said in the recent post(s) that were imprecise (which may have made them accidentally misleading) or that presented things to me in ways I hadn't seen them before need to consider.  As I've said before, I tend to find my emotions massive deep oceans and tsunamis and they tend to be overwhelming and constantly in motion like tides and breathing and all things that are living not dead... The deeper more powerful my emotions, the more impossible it is for me to find the words to contain them, sometimes it takes time for me to be able to express the deep oceans of feelings in word form so others can try to understand. And I don't MEAN to be difficult, it's just so much intensity and motion that I can't hold it in word form.... But sometimes the way for me to get the clearest view of things I'm feeling or experiencing or reacting from, I HAVE to put it into words because the words crystallize and freeze it in a snapshot so I can really look at it and examine it from different angles. You gain different information from a static frozen image/statue than the moving motions of a living changing forms force of nature....  Which is a really extended metaphor, but it's the best I can describe the process of translating between my emotions and my thoughts, of going from FEELING things to examining the forces pushing/pulling on the feelings to shape them and the ways they move inside me....

Anyway. What I'm trying to say is that some of the things I said were first attempts to put into words and seeing the static shape of what's been moving inside me, and so there was imprecision or things that I didn't recognize I SHOULD be poking at more to understand or heal or change or make better than I have been.

So the first thing I wanted to say is... My feelings, my actual feelings weren't complicated at all -- they were very simple straight forward and full of love and joy and pride for him and his journey of growth and what it has meant to him. That was it, that simple. No FOMO, no jealousy, no "I wish it had been like this instead of like that" -- just love and joy and pride in the isness of and growth path. That was very simple, that's what I meant when I was talking about the truest me qua me reaction. All the complicated was me questioning/asking if I OUGHT to feel that way, if I should be letting me see/feel at all anything about it if I was being honest about the letting go of him, it was the fear of letting him in at all opening the door of repeating the toxic patterns that have kept on repeating and so I OUGHT to be feeling nothing personal just distant "that's nice" you'd feel for any stranger's journey to be better than they had let themselves be and reconnect back into their truest self and truest choices.... My reaction was clear and strong and bright and true, it was the overthinking reacting judging my own reaction questioning if I should even be allowing myself to see/react at all to this stimulus that made the complicated layers of my "reactions." 

And the repressed anger I was referring to isn't at myself or him or even anyone who was involved in getting us to this point.... It was anger AT the judging overthinking "earned from experiences" squelching down on the joy/love springing up inside me and trying to yuck my yum.... It's anger at the learned reactions trying to tell my heart not to feel what it feels and why what it feels is wrong and delusional and going to lead me to hurt/harm because I'm not learning from the past that has been and the lessons it had to teach me....

Does that make more sense? I hope it does. Because it's the best I can explain what I was trying to say the other day and got a bit mixed up in seeing it recognizing it for the first time. 

And... I do think... In the name of honesty.... When I say I need hope and belief again that there's a path forward for us, that there is a place for me within his life as HE would choose to build it.... What I need is weapons and reasons to help me fight the fear that if I listen or give ground to my instinctual natural optimistic hope/faith I will be leading myself back to repeating the same cycles and experiencing the same pains but seasoned with a healthy dose of "you foolish girl, how could you learn nothing from going through these same cycles already? You already have seen this cycle yet you stepped right back into repeating it and so you have no EXCUSE to be hurt that reality is reality...." The hope in being able to at some point, in this life or another, create a future with him is sort of always there inside me bubbling up as relentlessly as the bond itself that can't be severed only made dormant put to sleep -- it's impossible to dam up or pull out of me. I just don't trust it anymore, keep knee jerk trying to bury it under realism and logic every time it bubbles up in me to want to respond to him from a place of love and trust and belief that there's a way to a shared life path this lifetime, and the more time has passed with the toxic dynamics interfering teaching their "lessons" to me, the stronger that knee jerk reactionary has become after so long having hammered into me that there's no place for me in his life and I'm not welcome there by those who matter most to him and he doesn't care about that, is absolutely fine with this dynamic existing/repeating across all these years....

The hope/faith I need in him is that I'm not making a horrible mistake if I trust him and what's in my heart and what reaches me from the bond that it's not going to lead to repeating the same damn toxic patterns/cycles yet again.... Otherwise what's the point in letting me reach back to him from my love for his isness leading us both on until the same things happen that have happened repeatedly across these recent years....

The complications and fear and lack of trust in him/myself isn't because my heart has shifted at all in how it feels/responds to his isness and wanting him to find/claim the happiness he seeks for his life, it's the weight of all the things I ought to have learned from the repeating pattern dynamics of these last six years and all the toxicity it bred as a consequence of things I couldn't alter with my own agency and calling myself a fool that I can't discipline my heart to listen to all the ought tos whenever there's anything comes along pulls at my heart strings pulls me back to him and the love between our souls.

Does that make any sort of sense? It's okay if it doesn't... It's just hard to words when there's an inner battle between the heart and the head because they don't really speak the same languages.... And my heart is steadfast in feeling what it feels and my head is a bit of a know it all "told you so" trying to warn that if nothing's changed I'll just repeat the same cycles we've been through before.... the heart is steady and strong unchanging, but the head is a lot more powerfully persuasive to take the reins put itself in charge because it has the weight of past being repeating prologue pattern seeking on its side.... But it's okay if me trying to explain the head vs heart inner battle doesn't make sense to you -- these internal battles are always complicated and the heart doesn't use words it just knows its own truth and the head uses nothing but words and logic and pattern seeking to make its case.

There's probably a less messy way of integrating lessons and growing from them, but my emotions are all oceans of aliveness and my thoughts are all sharpened/polished words to build structures...so this is the best I've got within this subjective consciousness within this body and this life.

But the healing that needs to happen, at least from my side of the bond, for me to return love for love and believe again in a shared life path this life with my polar bear (especially to have it in waking as well as in dreaming) is to give my heart the ascendancy tell the head to shut up because things have changed enough that how it was isn't how it will be from here moving forward. Because otherwise, whenever I get burned and hurt (or even just afraid of being burned again the same as I have been before) my head is going to just get brutally realist force the heart to listen to its logic and rationalizations for how to avoid repeating the hurts of the past cycles/toxic patterns.

And I don't know how to give me that to put the heart in ascendancy... I just know it's what I need at this time for letting him back in healing between us to grow back toward each other instead of me trying to walk away from the bond and all it has given us and promised us we could have if we both choose it and nurture it.

I think it's worth it, I just don't know how to give me what I need to be able to choose that... And maybe it isn't something I can give myself. Maybe it can only come from how we can build together to give me tangible foundations to believe in.... Because maybe trust/faith requires the tangible reasons to believe in it if you're trying to build after it's been broken in the past. But I don't know how to get there from here, especially with my head continuously telling me it's maybe all delusional all in my head and not anything he wants or would choose for himself after all. The heart is stubborn and steady and certain, but the head is absolutely relentless just never shuts up unless you give it some tangible evidence that meets its criteria of proofs.... 

And since I can't give me what I would need for this head vs heart inner battle, it's been easier to just set the battle aside as being immaterial to my lived life and telling myself to be practical focus down my attention into what and who IS in my life and to invest of my love/energy/time into those people and things that DO choose me welcome me to share time/space/life paths together. 

But in my heart of hearts, all I want to do is hug him tight to me and just pour love into him down the bond make sure he knows how deep and true and unwavering my joy that he IS and my desire that he find and hold onto all the happiness he seeks for himself in his life, whatever form that actually takes for him and his choices this lifetime -- though it would make me selfishly happiest for me to be integral to whatever that means for his greatest happiness just as he is for mine. It's the head and the learned behaviors/reactions/expectations/assumptions that complicate what is so straightforward simple within my heart.

but then also.... if it's not possible to give me that, then it's time for me to let go of my polar bear and to release all expectations that our life paths may be joined this life so I can find the path that does bring my heart and my head into balance and peace instead of this sort of battle

 Currently waiting on half time of the Packers game paused before starting the second half (but my phone has spoilered me with the final score when another text came in) while my sister's family make/eat lunch and we had some nachos here. But just wanted to say that the Astro Poets Horoscopes for the coming week DID come in this morning after my not sleeping then overtired overthinking trying to analyze understand my own reactions and emotions now that I've been sitting with them a few days after they'd been stirred up after letting them lie under the surface of focusing on what IS in my life letting go of any expectations over what isn't in my life and I lack the agency to change on my own.

Anyway, what's been coming down the bond since this morning is... It's still love and very intense and heady but also there's this reassurance woven through it, like this big safe hug with forehead kisses and being told "it's alright, don't worry so much. I promise you this is finally coming right. You'll see." It's a very soothing set of emotions to be receiving down the bond, especially with just the intensity/depth of love and reassurance all through everything coming so strongly down the bond.

And then I saw the Astro Poets for this week came in and I laughed because it had that same sort of reassuring vibe to it: 

"Week of 12/5 in Libra: You have found yourself in love. With trees and such they ring. The lilac around the maximum place. They see it all so clearly, too. Find yourself in love again."

"Week of 12/5 in Pisces: There is a friend. There is a friend who can see it clearly. You sort of went away with dreams. Then you came back again. Then you saw it all so clearly and brightly again with dreams."

I don't have to have answers now, I just have to listen and see what unfolds. And as for any other men.... Unless someone completely new enters the picture, ain't no reasons to even consider any of the Irish boys til March at the soonest I'd be seeing them to turn up the heat on any mutual flirtations growing into anything more serious. And I do still have reservations about dating within such a tight knit community where everybody knows everybody's business.... 

And, I think... Now that I've put it into words to see it more clearly, I can't rule out the idea that some part of me has been looking elsewhere since July because I know my own ethics and me being with someone else would close the door more firmly for me not even considering Eric or the bond if there's no place and no welcome for me in his life.... Which is the wrong reason to date someone else, even if I'm attracted to them my reasons would be wrong headed and unfair to them. 

"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning."~Louis L'Amour

 In my last post (well not the book post, obviously, since that's just a running additions post with a preset date on it so it stays at the top of the list and I add to it as I finish books or acquire books) when I was griping about being sick (I'm feeling better now, thanks; not all the way better but on Friday I woke up back to how I was when I first started having a runny nose on last Friday and then how I was on Sunday when I was better before the not sleeping and travel day exposure even with a mask on to other viruses especially like the sick kid in my row sitting on the tarmac over an hour.... Also I think this is the non-communicable laryngitis I get where anything that triggers coughing triggers laryngitis in the lower part of my range which causes coughing which causes laryngitis which... etc loop. I'm no longer super phlegmy or anything and what there is when I blow my nose (especially after coming in from the stupidly cold outside) is all just clear and my cough/hoarse lower end of my voice feels like when I have a lot of concerts/fests and people try to hold conversations with me that require shouting over the music between sets... I still didn't go help prelim pack/move my grandma today (o right, my grandma is moving this month and that's a whole nother saga I never even got into) because between her getting covid right before I left and then norovirus while I was gone (both from the common dining areas of her place she's moving out of) the LAST thing she needed was exposure to whatever I'm kicking. Yeah she's elderly so got the rsv vax, but this year even elderly who got the vax were getting it and maybe it wasn't rsv I had just because there was rsv at Ellie's preschool right before Christmas.) 

Okay. That start of a sentence got so the fuck far away from me... We're just going to start over now with a do over, lol. Strike that, try again Dani.

So when I wrote the post griping about the tail end of being sick on New Year's Day, I was still very not caught up on my emails and hadn't even looked at them at all that day. I have since, including the email from Eric about the meaningful growth he went through over this last year and his hopes/plans/beliefs for the coming months and the core belief inside him that he has learned/rediscovered over the last year or so: it's never too late to choose what matters most to oneself. And I love knowing that's the place of faith in himself and what he loves/believes in and my immediate reaction was to want to reach back and be like, "yes this! So much this! Always this!" but there's also the practical pull inside me that says, "yes that's beautiful and it brings light to my heart to know this is the place he's in right now -- but what has changed on the practical day to day level or healed the toxic patterns opened new paths beyond the old barriers so we can get somewhere new where there's healing?" And I don't have any answers or insights to answer that practical part of me telling me not to be a fool and return to old repeating cycles just because I felt like he's saying what i want to hear and want to believe to be about me and to give in to the pull of the bond between us.

I'm sorry if that's not what you want from me as a reaction, but it's my truth. It's complicated. What I desire to react is at odds with the practical logical of isness in this life and these bodies and the past that is the prologue that got us to this moment.... I'm afraid it's going to take more than telling me you're as damn stubborn as ever and feel certain now about your own heart/soul choices and still believe there's a way because it's not yet too late. It's been so long a mess that I need something that isn't me reading into it what I want to hear, something tangible and REAL if you want me to reignite hope and faith that I shouldn't give up on the bond and the promise of it and what it could be......

I... I think I'll just let it be and wait and see what unfolds and what is chosen and for now still keep focusing my own energy into those that choose me and choose to be in my life. 

I can't tell you why there's so much fire and love and explosively reaching down the bond from him again. That's still like that you know -- it started a bit after the solstice and it's waxing not waning intensity from him. While I was so busy as I said I would be these last six months, he really wasn't reaching me that way. But now he is again both waking and sleeping, very strongly and very heady with so much love and desire and a promise woven through it.... And I don't pretend to understand his why of that -- I'm not here to try project onto him what I want to be true or what I fear might be his truth. I want to know what his truth IS. And that I'll only learn by listening to how he shares his truth(s) in his own ways. Which means I'm grateful for all the truth(s) of his he chooses to share, even if I'm still digesting it trying to understand and so he's not getting the immediate reaction from the heart he might wish for from me.

But also... It's so stupid that I need to think on it and digest it like that because of how complicated things have gotten... Because like at the very most me qua me core of me ignoring all the learned processing my reactions were so simple and clear and strong.... At that core most child-like truest self response, the moment I saw his name in my inbox all I felt was immediate rush of joy that just blossomed and ignited and grew brighter and brighter as I read what he had to say and share and I just had the strongest desire to hug him tight as I could with this inner clarion of, "yes! It's not too late! We just need to choose it, both be ready to choose it! But you're right, it's not too late and there's no new choices from me making more barriers yet. And o but is that really truly what you want?! Finally? Is it though? Promise?" And that was the entirety of my initial reaction before the overthinking secondary reactions (which psychologists say are conditioning and learned reactions/behaviors/ways of thinking) started to make it all so much more complicated and make me uncertain and second guess my reactions and what had changed and what if honestly nothing he was saying and nothing echoing down the bond has any damn thing to do with me but is instead just his joy in his album he's been working on and a renewal of his heart finding someone else to invest it in somewhere else and none of the shininess love coming down the bond form him has anything at all to do with me?

So maybe I'm just being stupid. Maybe I should be listening and trusting to the truest parts of myself, of me qua me, because that's what the truest parts of him are trying to reach now after all his growth soul searching anyway -- and I should tell the learned responses to fuck right on off. It's just hard because if I do that and I'm wrong and it's just ego telling me what I want to hear/believe, it's going to hurt a lot more when reality as it IS smacks me upside the face and the learned responses say, "See? I told you that's how it would be. These are the patterns we've observed that got us to here. Why didn't you listen to me? I just wanted to save you from being hurt by the crash down disappointment of learning what you want to be true isn't truth at all."

Like I said. It's complicated inside me right now in my logic driven conscious mind in response to him... Present isn't past and neither of us is the versions of ourselves we were just a year ago.....but also I can't just unlearn disappear forget what these recent years have taught me to expect from him.....

 But. Also. Underneath the calm practical "this recurring dynamic is unhealthy, so let me separate what I do and don't have agency to change here to stop breeding toxicity" that I've been operating under these last six months or so, there is a repressed fury inside me at the externally forced upon me learned patterns/behaviors that I CAN'T just respond entirely with that honest centered core of me heart of love toward him and the things he says/does, that there's so much learned behaviors/inhibitions/expectations that block me from responding with that personal truest version of me first initial reaction. I'm not angry at the third parties and situations that created these learned behavioral adjustments, I'm furious that they are there at all mediating the honesty of my heart/soul responsiveness toward his truths he chooses to share. And it's kind of always there now, but I only feel it and recognize it's there when I'm confronted with the complicated mess of reactions that comes on the heels of my innate natural heart based first reaction that is my truth rather than all the learned behaviors layered over on top of it... I didn't feel it, even though it was there inside me, so long as I was focusing on what is in my life not seeing/hearing/experiencing anything from him reaching me that I wanted to be responding from my inmost self initial reactions but instead feeling all sorts of complicated from the learned behaviors/layers from external third party influences changing things getting in the way teaching different truths than my own personal inner truth.

 And. It's probably because of the fury in me that there's so much learned responses burying my natural honest instinct to love and excitement and joy in his isness that part of my approach focusing on what is within my control to change and to grow that direction is my latching on to what brings me unadulterated joy and responds to my joy with the same joy -- why I've been more than willing and quite happy to contemplate moving in the direction of dating Diarmaid if he broached it with me since our paths crossed back in August. Because so far the addition of him into my life is only joy and natural responsiveness of joy and especially with the past life memory layers, I have the similar instinctive wanting to curl up into his chest to snuggle into a big protective hug and feel safe there. And also because I know me and I know my ethics -- and if I give my word or any part of my heart to another man, for the term that we're building a relationship together I won't LET me look or reach elsewhere outside of that person I'm building with and who is trusting their heart to me as I am trusting mine with them -- by choosing to date another man, I'd be not allowing myself to desire or choose or feed into ANYTHING related to the bond to Eric for so long as I'm in another relationship. And that removes the temptation in me to give him another chance return to what my own inmost self desires.

 And it is easier, when there is nothing within your agency other than walking away from the situation wherein you can't affect change, to look for something new and shiny than to face that which causes such fury and turmoil within you -- for how do you integrate the darker emotions and release that repressed fury when there's nothing you can do to stop the cause from repeating? I've read lots of people's philosophies and methods for coping as they are trying to do that, but they're all forms of sublimation and escapism until the individual is removed from the situation they can do nothing with their own agency to alter... Which is part of why my best answer after six years of no change and nobody else showing any signs or responses they care to even discuss it was to say "then I am done with the only ways this touches my life affects me. I will go look elsewhere for where my future life path will lead me this lifetime."

And. Unrelated to that. But also. Just because I can hear his love and joy singing through him reaching me down the bond and  have read the fiery courage of where he acknowledges his own heart and approach to life to be, still I shouldn't allow myself to sit in the hubris of my own ego and assume my own importance, assume it has any damn thing to do with me. Rejoicing in his joy and the light and love within him shining so brightly is one thing, but assuming it has any dang thing to do with me is another entirely and an act of hubris in that assumption I need to nip in the bud.  It is better for me to continue as I have been going and rejoice in his joy and love as an isness but still continue as if there's no place for me to be welcomed into his life because I see no evidence that there is and nobody cares about that but me because I've seen no actions that would lead me to think there was any changes there in these six months -- and so I should continue to invest of my own energy and love and time elsewhere, to invest in my present moments and those who return love for love and the people/communities where my presence in their lives is desired and celebrated and welcomed with open arms.

 

In the Astro Poets horoscopes from the last month, Libra and Pisces still seem to be in dialogue, or maybe more accurately telling different parts of the same story. Which other signs are not doing with themselves or other signs week to week. It's fascinating, it's been pretty much all year now. Eventually I expect that will shift, but until then I'll keep sharing them because I find it curious.... Also, I have no idea how or why there's so much love surrounding and through everything in the Libra horoscopes this whole time, but there is from them. There just is.

"Week of 12/8 in Libra: You shine so brightly. That’s where you can see again. What you see now is full of all eternity. Mint green and everlasting. You can see in the future that sings."

"Week of 12/8 in Pisces: A plant that has leaves remains. So it goes and says nothing. But what it does say is what you want it too. It can be yours. And let it be."

"Week of 12/15 in Libra: Everything that is delicious. Enjoy that. What kind of life is this. It’s the greatest love. Accept this kindness and victory."

"Week of 12/15 in Pisces: Something you will see. Not clearly but in the distance. Do not go there. Instead know that you will. Knowing you will is everything."

"Week of 12/22 in Libra: Into the night you create. You create the dream with bright lights. They are blue and gold, tan and green. The red rose is appearing. Give it to who you love."

"Week of 12/22 in Pisces: You love a mind. What is in it is full of riches. But beginning to be is the greatest wish. So the light that extends reminds. Let it"

"Week of 12/29 in Libra: So much love extends. In the heart of it in the center. A beach a bed where you can see the family. In the night it is not so much so. In the light it is all real like power."

"Week of 12/29 in Pisces: So much the rainbow. So much the things set in order. So much the scene where you can see into everything. There were expectations. With wildness they begin again."

The Astro Poets horoscope for this coming week hasn't come in yet at the time of writing this, so no idea how it fits with any of this I'm wrestling with for the coming week. It will come in eventually, later today. But it hasn't yet. It will probably come in right after I post this. But it's now after the sun is up and I am tired haven't slept yet tonight so I'm going to sleep for a bit now before heading to my parents house to watch the Packers game with my mum and the dogs and text/zoom with my sister (and family) while we watch it together in real time.

October/November/December Book List

 There is a large chunk of books by Moncure in the books acquired section -- these are books that my sister and I had growing up which she asked to take out west for when the kids were little with the understanding if they got tired of them I wanted them and not to go to a charity shop but the kids could have them for as long as they wanted them. Neither Jack nor Mo want them and Ellie had little interest in them so my sister sent them back with my parents on their visit in late September when they got back Oct 1 (when the books were returned to me.) I did reread them all before shelving them, but they're such short kids books that I didn't think they needed to be included in the books read list as well to bulk it out.

I had a lot going on this autumn and so I feel like my reading list is shorter than usual -- and all the Baum books were re-read/read after seeing Wicked.  Re-reading Wicked books is first up on my January at home reading agenda before moving on to other things.

Books Read: 

~Nathan Alan Davis, Nat Turner in Jerusalem (60 pgs)

~Erik Didriksen, Pop Sonnets (128 pgs) [I picked this up in a free little library last summer. It's amusing if you know the original song lyrics but rather meh overall. It's good for a few laughs but I would not recommend and don't know if I will keep it.]

~Winnie Lyon, The Curse of the King (379 pgs) [I actually enjoyed this book very much. It was very YA high school hereditary witch everything is the end of the world if you don't get it right senior year, but it also brought in Shakespeare and putting on a play and ties to ancestral wounding past and ideas about death and a book crush worthy vampire boy. It was a good jump start out of my recent reading slump inertia. I basically devoured this as quickly as life allowed and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not the deepest, but very enjoyable for exactly what it was -- like the joy of re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Hocus Pocus or Pretty Little Liars or like the Disney series version of Goosebumps -- that sort of YA spooky season escapist comfort zone vibe, y'know?]

~Ella Young, Celtic Wonder-Tales (202 pgs)

~Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point (301 pgs) [I picked this up used and then never got around to reading it even though a lot of people swore by it as changing the way you think about many things in the world. i recently saw he's written a followup some 20 years later on the negative sides of tipping points all about the bad aspects of things going viral when they reach their cultural tipping point. I enjoyed it but I didn't find it life changing and the author is DEFINITELY guilty of confusing correlation with causation fallacy.]

~Deborah Noyes (editor), Gothic! Ten Original Dark Tales (241 pgs)

~Greg Hair, Werewolf (292 pgs) [Annoyingly, this mediocre obvious trajectory novel that I picked up for free in a little library is the first in a trilogy BUT the others are only available in kindle format so i can't have them all on a shelf together so then what even is the point? Not gonna keep this one, it will only frustrate and irk me to see it on the shelf under these circumstances....]

~Rick de Yampert, Crows and Ravens: Mystery, Myth, and Magic of Sacred Corvids (269 pgs) [this book was sadly disappointing. I wanted it to be so much better than it was since it combines pagan earth magic and study/reverence of crows. Overall though, I found it to be lots of words but little substance and nothing new or insightful for me in how to deal with earth magic generally or crows and other Corvids specifically.]

~Robert A. Hall (ed.), Italian Stories Novelle Italiane [dual language book of short stories in Italian and English] (351 pgs)

~Rachel Gillig, One Dark Window (421 pgs) [Absolutely FANTASTIC! Completely devoured in one sitting! So so so so so good!]

 ~Chinua Achebe, Girls at War and Other Stories (120 PGS)

~Rachel Gillig, Two Twisted Crowns (465 pgs) [Not as good as the first novel, clearly written to connect the points she wanted to tell and to reach the ending she wanted to get to from the beginning but not as polished or well constructed as the first novel.]

~T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party (192 pgs)

~James Fenimore Cooper, The Deerslayer (544 pgs) [for some reason only some part of me can fathom, I decided I wanted to re-read Last of the Mohicans because I didn't really remember it and when I read it in school it was an abridged version and I wanted to read it in the original BUT I decided that when I embarked on this, I needed to read all five of them in the series because I never had (with the caveat emptor about the potential racism in the era it was written even when glamorizing the noble savage, racist tropes still abound) so I set about finding them and I have all of them in the same 1960s Signet classic mass market paperback except the last one which I picked up in whatever format I could find but for the sake of shelf appeal I need to find it in the 60s Signet Classic edition. Why did I decide this should be my purse book novels? No idea. But also, the racism is WAY more overt than casual, even with the main character arguing against it but the plot supports the more racist views and teaching the main character why those views held true in that time and it was hard to actually bring myself to read this because it's VERY extreme in the racism so I understand now how/why these have fallen so far out of favor of the canon of American "classics" let alone taught in school. It makes Jack London's racism tame in comparison. It may be a bit of a slog for me reading through the others in the series, even with Last of the Mohicans being the next one..]

~Nancy Farmer, The House of the Scorpion (380 pgs) [this was an unexpectedly brilliant and prescient sci-fi of a near future of cartel owned borderlands between Mexico and the US and the ethics issues of using clones to harvest organs to keep the ultra rich alive and use of chip implants to control people and wealth/power disparities within this imagined future]

~Tom Stoppard, Indian Ink (83 pgs)

~Cicero, The Nature of the Gods (230 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz (219 pgs) [talking about the social views and politics of Baum and Maguire after seeing Wicked Part One made me realize how long it had been since I had read either and so I decided to embark on that reread journey. I've also only ever read the first three of the Wicked series because that's all there was at the time I read them and Maguire had said he was done and I never followed up until just now to discover there are more. Also, I only own the first two so need to acquire the missing ones and the followup trilogy to read because I am a completionist.]

~L. Frank Baum, The Land of Oz (273 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, Ozma of Oz (246 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (221 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, The Road to Oz (255 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, The Emerald City of Oz (299 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, The Patchwork Girl of Oz (347 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, Tik-Tok of Oz (256 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, The Scarecrow of Oz (267 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, Rinkitink in Oz (281 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, The Lost Princess of Oz (281 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, The Tin Woodman of Oz (255 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, The Magic of Oz (234 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, Glinda of Oz (255 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, Little Wizard Stories of Oz (169 pgs)

~Alexander Pope, Essay on Man & Other Poems (99 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, The Magical Monarch of Mo (237 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, Queen Zixi of Ix (231 pgs)

~L. Frank Baum, John Dough and the Cherub (315 pgs)

Books Acquired:

~Ayi Kwei Armah, Fragments

~Holly Black, Book of Night 

~Olivie Blake, Masters of Death

~Amy Bruni, Food to Die For (this is a gorgeous book gifted by my darling sister and brother-in-law; it is a hard bound book of pictures, recipes, and stories/history from the most legendary haunted places in America -- some of the recipes I need to adapt for my pork allergy, but all of them I looked at while paging through sounded delicious!) 

~Pearl S. Buck, Pavilion of Women

~Cassandra Clare, Sword Catcher

~Disney Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas (picture book)

~Raj Haldar & Chris Carpenter, No Reading Allowed*  *The Worst Read-aloud Book Ever** **A confusing collection of hilarious homonyms and sound-alike sentences (this was also a gift from my sister and brother-in-law and they bought their family a copy as well so we all read together from both copies simultaneously on Christmas Day. It's by the same authors who wrote P is for Pterodactyl which I gifted them when Jack was the youngest/only kid but haven't yet picked up for myself.)

~Grady Hendrix, How to Sell a Haunted House

~Walter Isaacson, Leonardo Da Vinci

~Stephen King, Pet Sematary

~Jasmine Mas, Blood of Hercules

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "a" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "b" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "c" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "d" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "e" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "f" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "g" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "h" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "i" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "j" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "k" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "L" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "m" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "n" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "o" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "p" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "q" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "r" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "s" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "t" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "u" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "v" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "w" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My "x, y, z" Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, My First Book

~Jane Belk Moncure, Apes Find Shapes

~Jane Belk Moncure, Away Went the Farmer's Hat

~Jane Belk Moncure, The Bears Upstairs

~Jane Belk Moncure, A Color Clown Comes To Town

~Jane Belk Moncure, A Dragon in a Wagon

~Jane Belk Moncure, Here We Go 'Round the Year

~Jane Belk Moncure, Hop-Kip-Jump-a-roo Zoo

~Jane Belk Moncure, How Many Ways Can You Cut A Pie?

~Jane Belk Moncure, Ice-cream Cows and Mittens Sheep

~Jane Belk Moncure, Little Too-Tall

~Jane Belk Moncure, The Magic Moon Machine

~Jane Belk Moncure, Mousekin's Special Day

~Jane Belk Moncure, Mr. Doodle Had a Poodle

~Jane Belk Moncure, Nanny Goat's Boat

~Jane Belk Moncure, One Tricky Monkey Up On Top

~Jane Belk Moncure, A Pocketful of Pets

~Jane Belk Moncure, Polka-Dot Puppy

~Jane Belk Moncure, Rabbits' Habits

~Jane Belk Moncure, "Smile" Says Little Crocodile

~Jane Belk Moncure, What Can We Play Today?

~Jane Belk Moncure, What Do You Say When a Monkey Acts This Way?

~Jane Belk Moncure, Yes, No, Little Hippo

~M. L. Rio, If We Were Villains

~V. E. Schwab, The Fragile Threads of Power

~Rebecca Thorne, A Pirate's Life for Tea

~Voltaire,  Best Known Works of Voltaire

~Darlene Weingand, Crystal Saga 4: 5 & 6: The Game...Round 2 & Into the Unknown

~Evie Woods, The Story Collector

~Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow

 I'm still alive and I made it safely home on Monday (delayed several hours in Detroit due to mechanical issue with the plane so had to wait for another plane to get in we could use) it's just, I've been sick with some form of death plague since Fri and staying up for 36 hours straight with traveling solo and being stuck on planes with like a very sick kid in my row on the small hopper flight definitely made me worse -- hopefully not multiple viral infections at once worse, mais on verra.  

Mostly cough and phlegm and just exhaustion like anemia from the phlegm making me get less oxygen than I'm accustomed to when breathing through my nose, but also mostly just a LOT of phlegm production with this virus or viruses... I'm not used to having any sort of congestion or phlegm production at all ever, my allergies are all ones that make me throw up after eating certain foods or migraines from synthetic perfumes/chemicals or I get itchy throat/Eustachian tubes or throat constricting from certain things like some strains of hops and occasionally coconut but never histamine allergies that make me excessively snotty. And then other than encountering an occasional stomach bug, me getting even a short 24hr cold is like a once in 5-7 year misery event with me and anything worse like the flu is a once in 12-15 year event for me.... I've never even tested positive for COVID or bad symptoms after exposure which is why I treat myself as an asymptomatic carrier of it and wear masks try to be cautious for others not for my own sake. So even if this were a mild bug I would just feel all sorts of extra ick and miserable with it. But I'm pretty sure this is the nasty RSV variant that's been going around, there were some cases of it at Ellie's preschool Christmas week and it was that Friday I woke up and my nose had become a faucet I couldn't turn off and both Mo and Ellie were showing symptoms on Sat akin to mine while my sister had much milder symptoms like mine. Also, though, Jack had a long lingering cough and sore throat when I first arrived and all through my visit so it could be that.... I have been testing for COVID throughout just in case I picked that up somehow but that's always been testing negative despite how miserably phlegmatic this sicky blechness has made me. The phlegm production and coughing is pretty awful with whatever bug this is but honestly the worst for me is the viral conjunctivitis which is something I've never experienced before in my entire life (I've heard of it before and it's normally adenoviruses that cause it but this year it's also part of this year's RSV outbreak, a common symptom every line of COVID descended from Arcturus, and a symptom with current bird flu viral strains -- so while it would normally help narrow things down, this season it doesn't help at all) and the viral conjunctivitis is miserable... Absolutely miserable especially when waking up with eyes crusted together, watering like crazy.... all the redness in my eyes from being so irritated and goopy made my eyes an insanely bright aquamarine color for several days -- which would have been really cool and pretty if I weren't feeling so ick and my eyes weren't so itchy weepy with intermittent discharge to wipe up with warm compresses.... knock on wood, today the eye ickiness is finally improving when I woke up from today's long sleep because Monday after my post flight nap before going into work and then my 12+ hour sleep on Tues until the afternoon/evening when I woke up to go get the last end of month deposit done so end of year closing books could happen, the added viral conjunctivitis made it feel like I had so much phlegm up into my sinuses it was coming out my eyeballs. It was so gross..... So fucking gross..... today I just had normal amounts of post sleep eye grit so I'm hopefully that aspect of fighting this virus is improving now that I've been able to get some sleep since getting back home. (The animals refuse to leave me or let me out of their sight since I got back, the cat is rather miffed whenever I head in to work, lol.) I actually get better when it comes to the coughing and phlegm production when I'm vertical not horizontal for sleeping, but also my body is the type that just shuts down for repairs turns into Sleeping Beauty mode whenever it needs to heal anything so even drinking coffee is a "will this make me feel better or knock me out fall asleep because adhd?" mystery to me.  Mostly I've just feeling so much sicky icky, and it doesn't help any that my period is currently at the new moon/moon moving into Capricorn so I had my period while phlegmy sick coughing whenever I stopped using cough drops with viral conjunctivitis intermittent eye ickiness and air traveling solo so couldn't sleep to heal.... I've just felt like a big ball of physical ick these last several days and everyone who missed me is so happy to have me back see me again after I was gone for three weeks and I'm just like, "hey. I promise I'm more excited to see you than I seem, my energy is just real low for me until I heal. Also I don't want to get other people sick so maybe less hugging me in your happiness to see me." Hopefully whatever it is can't jump species because the dog and cat are both in velcro constant snuggle mode since I got home.... 

My executive function is even less functional than my normal level of "I'm a Libra sun Pisces rising with ADHD sooo decisions aren't my forte unless I'm completely certain what I want right this moment" and my appetite has been fairly low since Sunday night, so I've basically been living on hot beverages and cough drops and sugar consumption to get me through. (Did have Thai food on New Year's Eve because my bff decided that I was too exhausted to make plans so she invited herself over and picked up a bottle of French blanc de blancs for midnight, came into my work for some happy hour cocktails and orange prosecco with my mum and Sarah and Karissa, decided we should have Thai food then ordered it for my parents and her and me, then we went and hung out with my animals and caught up chatted while I unpacked until we had midnight champagne. I still have like two meals worth of leftover 7 star spicy veggie panang curry to eat. Or less than one meal if my normal post being sick bottomless pit of hunger hollow days strike.) 

Anyway, I'll get better -- I just haven't felt this miserably sick since I had the death plague right after college that we're pretty sure was MERS based on timing and symptoms and me acquaintance level knowing someone downtown who had it. And the good news is this means that if past is prologue, it should be a while before I get sick with even a minor cold again, right? 

I should see if Waffles O'Whoofigans needs to go outside though... She hasn't been out since just after midnight when she insisted on needing to pee right after midnight and helped me keep the tradition for opening and closing the door at midnight to let the old year out and the new one in. (I also broke a dish just before midnight, my watering pitcher I've had for years, which is an old superstition for warding off evil spirits/intentions and to bring good luck in the new year. Curiously, realized last night that I've actually always accidentally broken a dish or glass every year on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day as far back as I can remember in this body and I just thought I got inexplicably clumsy right around then or that it's normal for things to fall over with nobody near them or touching them around New Year's... But I know I had put that pitcher flat on the plant stand and right after I turned my back it fell over with a thunk and smashed up into four pieces.... I also accidentally carried around an empty suitcase around midnight (which is supposed to bring in more travel opportunities in the new year) as I was unpacking but Crissy was reading up on New Year's superstitions right then after I'd broken the ceramic pitcher because we realized I broke a dish of some sort every year at New Year's and wondered what it meant so she laughed when she saw me walk in with an empty suitcase just as she had read that superstition.  And I spilled some champagne for good luck on a picture of my cousins and my Uncle Jomi who is currently battling very serious cancer -- most of the champagne was directly on Dylan but it also splashed onto half of Jomi... Felt like someone came up tapped the bottle from underneath when it happened -- hopefully it isn't an omen of pouring out for loved ones lost....)

Anyway. I'm improved from where I was, just sicker than I remember being in a long time. But given a flu is a once in 12-15 years and even a cold is a once in 5-7 year event for me, I think I just forget between times how miserable any sort of sick is and this is just the rsv they warned about being bad this year. Also. It's 11:30 now and I should go take the dog out before it gets tooo late. Also before I keep drinking more black coffee that could send me to sleep (I decided to pause catching up on my tea advent calendars I got behind on while I was in WA since I'm too phlegmy to give fair assessment of flavors -- green tea chais/spiced blends I had yesterday both tasted very floral and not much spiced as they smelled to me lol.)

P. S. I still need to post the Oct/Nov/Dec booklist but I don't have all the books I acquired end of Dec in it. So it will be a little late. Maybe still tonight but also maybe not until tomorrow.... On verra. 

P. P. S. In addition to waking up still sick, which is not my favorite, all afternoon and night tonight there has been such a rushing in pouring of love down the bond which IS one of my favorite things. Even if/when I push it away try to deny it, for whatever reasoning I'm using to justify that reaction, still the very first thing it does to me is make me feel held in love bring joy to my heart and soul.  He's so clear and bright and certain today, just reaching out beaming such intense love down the bond. Not sure why, just know is. It has definitely helped me feel less ick even if I am still coughing and a bit phlegmy today but less than I was the last several days. I'm definitely not in a head or heart space or have enough energy to fight him or myself make me push him away saying it's for his own good if there's no way forward for me to be in his life. It's just not in me right now to fight. I'm definitely in much more the mood to curl up into that love pouring in and snuggle into it with gratitude and say, "thank you, I need this right now. I don't know how you knew, but I very much needed this."

P. P. P. S. More drama with the neighbors downstairs since last updated about it, though this one was kind of funny because they tried to blame me for it while I wasn't home and I was too blunt from starting to get sick to pull my punches about that truth and suddenly it went from threatening "you have to get a plumber in asap or we will be forced claim this through our insurance against you" to "actually this looks like it's our washer" after I told them I hadn't even been home since 5am on Dec 10 and until that day when a single blanket was washed by the 19 year old cat sitting, nobody had used washer or dryer in my unit since Nov so any water into their closet in the last couple weeks could only have come from my washer/dryer due to back flow up the stack. The quick turnaround from them once I put it that way was super amusing to me tbh. But it did increase my concern that they would be looking to shift blame for anything onto me and trying to correlate me using any water in my unit to things happening in their unit and I can't ALWAYS be away from home or never shower or run water or use my toilet...... I just don't have the energy for dealing with the it right now and am worrying that they're going to keep fucking up the pipes and looking for anyone to blame but themselves and right now I'm their new target for blame rather than admitting they have a cat and she's a neat freak who does laundry daily and cleans all her vacuums and mops and filters in the sink and they regularly cook bacon (makes me physically I'll every time they do when the smell gets in my unit upstairs) but probably don't use a grease can.... I'm not sure how this behavior patterns they're establishing over the last few months can be addressed long-term short of me selling my condo and moving or them selling their condo moving.... And I'm VERY concerned about the damage they've done further down the pipes that will need replacing or fixing of some sort.... So getting things in order to sell my condo and move may be smartest thing for me to do. Only, I don't know where I would choose to live if I sold my condo and the housing/rental market is pretty shit right now making it a decent time to sell my place but not a good time to buy or rent somewhere else -- and with all my books, moving me is not an easy job or one to be undertaken lightly... (I still dream of some day living in a house with enough space for me to have a proper personal library with real wooden bookshelves for all my books and not having to stack all my bookshelves double or triple stacked deep like I do now...) I don't need to decide tonight. But this whole everything with the downstairs neighbors is mentally weighing on me a lot right now.

Happy solstice!! Shortest day of the solar year is today and then the light only grows from here! (Sorry if you've missed me, I've hardly been on socials either if that makes you feel better.... But right now I'm trying to recharge my new laptop before bed because I didn't grab the cable/charger for it before I was using it in the afternoon to make sure I paid my electricity bill etc that come due while I'm gone and then was going through emails until I noticed I'd run the battery pretty well all the way down. So while having youtube vids on, you get to hear from me while I take my laptop from 18% back up to full charge.)

 This is short and random. I'm safely at my sister's (have been since the 9th) with minimal travel difficulties or anything (other than baggage handlers creating a large hole in my mom's hard sided carry on sized luggage for gifts that I was using as my carry on but ended up checking for free due to over crowded flights. Been dealing with that still have a pdf form to fill out on it since my mom insists AND learning that my neighbors downstairs put in a claim to replace their entire cabinetry and a laptop WAY more than the damage required and their insurance had filed a subrogation claim to my insurance company so I had to open a liability claim on my homeowner's insurance (which is going to suck for the deductible but also you need lawyers to deal with each other for subrogation or it gets to be a small claims mess and I don't play eff around and find out with legal when outgunned by corporate types) and am waiting for them to call me back which was supposed to be within two business days but they didn't and now it's holiday week coming up so trying to figure out if I should call them back or anything because I don't expect them to get back to me anyway. Those are the two VERY annoying adulting things I've had to deal with across the start of my visit.... Blech! Anyway, is what it is. (And what it is sucks. but also, this is what it means to be a single adult in late stage capitalism...) 

But that aside, I've been having a lovely visit!! Feeling very spoiled by them all and getting lots of time with everyone! And today was the last day of school for the big kids before winter break! (Niblings are 9 yo, 6yo, 2.5yo now) So I will REALLY be MIA with pretty much all my time claimed by them until I'm flying home. Let's see, Sat plan is Children's Museum, Sun Cath Cath is coming over to frost cookies party with us all, Mon night is the Packers game, Tues is Christmas Eve and we're doing a Wonderland Tea Party (we did a Princess tea party Sun), and then Weds is Christmas.

Between two rewatches in the last week of the entire film Nightmare Before Christmas AND numerous repeats of the songs (both original film and alt/metal/emo cover versions) played within the (somewhat unhinged) holiday playlist my sister and brother-in-law created for the car, I've been living with some combination of Making Christmas, Kidnap the Sandy Claws, and This is Halloween as my constant background earworm metronome I can't shake. This is replacing the Onóir arrangement of Home to Donegal that was in my head for my entire travel day and the mornings waking up in Seattle area -- before the Jack Skellington takeover of my internal jukebox replaced Home to Donegal on internal loop. BUT every once in a while another ear worm sneaks in and I get stuck in my head one of my brain's crazy earworm remix medleys that are the hardest to shake because they don't exist outside of my head and sometimes the musical phrases/progressions are very fragmentary..... Last night it was with the Muppets song At the North Pole Comedy Club mixed with This is Halloween and there's the well known in these parts mashup of Goblin Christmas to the tune of Making Christmas (but you have to sing it in your best metal voice, which I am definitely not the best at even though this remixed earworm is my fault.) Tonight, my brain has given me the special gift of mashing up Kidnap the Sandy Claws woven through the Pokemon theme song (which I have finally learned all the words to be able to sing the theme song in my sleep thanks to numerous repeats of playing it by my nephew, the source of the vast majority of my Pokemon knowledge beyond my very frequent usage of the catch phrase and knowing a bit about some of my adult friends favorite characters I've learned over the years: Pikachu and Espion and Mewtwo and Squirtle and Charmander and Snorlax and Meowth and Jigglypuff and Bulbasaur.) This, this is quite the mash up to be getting ready for bed trying to fall asleep to, let me tell ya ... A sample from it goes something like, "you teach me and I'll teach you -- Pokémon! Gotta catch them all! [four measure instrumental bridge of my brains own invention] Kidnap the Sandy Claws, lock him up real tight, Throw Away the keys and turn off all the lights [guitar solo back] Gotta catch them alllll!" I understand why my brain made this remix version, but also, it's definitely NOT the most restful lullaby I could be trying to quiet my brain to fall asleep to, on this or any night.... 😂 So we better hope this cuppa chamomile tea works it's sleepytime soporific magic for me despite the ongoing influence of this very energetic internal lullaby mashup keeping me wide awake.

Other than some gifts randomly picked up or still coming in (including my Target order I didn't want to try to bring through TSA or checked) this year's Wrap-a-pa-looza is over since I have wrapped all the gifts currently in the house that need wrapping (except the ones they picked up for me, my sister wrapped them before I arrived rather than have me play blind man's bluff gift wrapping.) Last night during our post kiddo bedtime "sometimes cocktail/beer o'clock" paired with selections from the TV queue that the adults of the household saved for my visit, we reached the halfway point of our chainsaw carving competition (A Cut Above, or something like that) and finished off the last episode of For the Love of Cheese from my last visit. We started tonight on Is It Cake? Holiday Special which is only four episodes but definitely feels very Holidays Intensifying, lol. And we have like 80 episodes of Horrible Histories (a comedic BBC B rated Monty Python feeling show on history; very funny!) so don't expect we will finish it before I leave.

This morning, the sun rose to show a light dusting of snow on the world!!!! And it made my heart so happy!!!! 💖 It wasn't anywhere in the forecasts at all and it still isn't, it's probably my fault because I've been jealous of all the lake effect snow east of us on the other side of the Great Lakes and last night as I was leaving work in the wee hours I stared up at the low clouds blocking out the stars heaved a big sigh and said, "You LOOK like snow clouds and even though I know you're not, I DO so wish you would bring me some snow. It's December already and there's hardly been any at all here..." And then when the gloaming started to brighten as the sun rose on the other side of the low dense clouds of today, it showed everything coated in a dusting of small shifting flakes of fresh snow!!!!  And it makes me so happy!!! 

I've not yet made coffee or breakfast, just stayed up all night once home drinking tea and reading Oz books (we were talking about them after seeing Wicked and I realized it's been well over a decade since I re-read Baum and finally read the Maguire series (which at the time only had three books which is all I've read and I only own the first two need to get Lion Among Men and Out of Oz in the original edition so they all match OR pay for them all new in the reissue so they can match the prequel coming out in Spring AND apparently there's a followup trilogy; but while the stories of Wicked are good, I don't love his writing style because it's pretty much just fan fiction enough to want to invest a lot of money into it) and decided I'm overdue for a reread and Crissy reminded me that the original series has a lot of titles but they're super quick reads so I'm just starting book 6 of 15 now -- L. Frank Baum wrote 14 for the series and then some random comics and short stories; I only have one of the books of short stories intended for younger little kids, thus 15) while sitting in my reading chair with Spock curled up purring asleep in my lap and the candles lit and my Christmas tree plugged in (with Halloween underneath; I'm getting old enough and being single I do have to question if I ever will have kids not just fur babies.... But I think even if I ever do have kids or if I decide I have so many ornaments that I need more than one tree, I still love the look and idea of having all the Halloween decorations (that aren't permanent decor for me) beneath the tree to honor Jack Skellington til after kiddos would go to sleep for Christmas Eve and Sandy Claws can save Christmas morning. I just like it better than the mounds of presents visibly piling up tempting and taunting people...and I like the first sight of the filled stockings/presents to feel like magic -- that doesn't happen if presents are under the tree early....)

Wow. I really should get some coffee going and get caffeine in me to help focus the ADHD a bit more.... Congratulations if you managed to untangle all the parenthetical thoughts of those run on sentences to convey a really straight forward image of my staying up all night winter cozy hygge reading and drinking tea -- just told with way too much back story. I need to get breakfast going though (if I can ever convince this cat to let me up). Unless I decide to hold off on the laundry in which case I'll make it when I get hungry enough, lol. Unless I decide to sleep now I'm on the other side of the sunrise..... I may be so many hours awake that my body is tired enough that drinking coffee will just knock me out asleep... On verra. 

Anyway. I got over 20 hours in for this week which is good as I still have lots of errands and things to get done before I leave. I'm not (yet) time stressed but I do have a lot to get done... As for plans this week, Weds night is the company holiday dinner party (held extra early so I can join), Thurs night is the Packers game which I will likely watch at my parents house with my mum and the dogs because she and Sophie love having me and Waffles come join us all watching together, Fri night is the Madison Symphony Orchestra holiday show. THEN I want to try to get in as much of my 40 hours of works across Sat-Sun-Mon as I can which will have me time stressed but will make me less stressed about making up ptso.... AND on Mon morning I have my optometry appointment at 9:20 (which does have me time stressed, especially if they don't have contacts in stock or samples for me -- I've had the same contacts since August can't order more and they keep canceling my appointments for in house training and then it's three or more weeks to get the next available and I've been trying since September and I fly out at 6:30am next Tues so really need at least sample contact to get me through until I get back for paying/picking up my actual prescription before the year ends so EyeMed coverage will be off 2024 not 25....) Even with wanting to get 40 hours of work done in three days and pack and deal with the eye optometry and maybe sleep at least a little, I am thinking about throwing in going to see Four Seasons production of All Is Calm (spoken word from the real survivors letters and vocal harmonies of Christmas songs telling the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914 during WWI) as a matinee over the weekend and just not doing brunch or dinner around to so I can go back to working.... The show is beautifully done and I didn't see it last year since it was only while I was out west. Crissy brought it up and now I kinda do want to go.... Otherwise my mom said she will go with Crissy after I leave if she wants. I'll text ask Crissy about it later this week, just not today since she's in Clear Lake taking her dad to an appointment. 

Anyway. I didn't really have a point to starting this post. I guess, I should admit in the name of honesty that there's a part of me feels real bad about walking away in the dream the other night back into waking not even giving the polar bear a chance to say more.... But... I don't see how talking is going to help because without changing the toxic repeating behavior patterns, nothing good can grow of letting him reach me. It's not what I want, I would much rather have run to him and hugged him and snuggled into him even if I can only do that in dreams -- it took more will power than you realize not to react to him in that instinctive heart pulling way. But there's been enough hurt scarring the both of us repeating these idiotic toxic cycles and they don't change without changing the patterns of behaviors that create/foster them. And I guess that after six years of it, I've just given up on expecting any change or desire to heal from anyone but me and all I can do to change the dynamics is refuse to play the game and step myself out of it if all that is offered to me is the same patterns, the same boundaries of other people's choices.... I don't like it, but I don't have anything else I have any agency in that stops repeating the harmful cycles set in motion by his sisters choices in the bands name back in October 2018.... Find me a better answer or this is the choice I will stick with to let him go walk away from the dynamic entirely if it is only offered to me in a toxic poisoned form. It hurts me to know he's sad and upset, especially if it's because of me, but that isn't enough to change my mind this time to allow myself to soften and go back allowing the same patterns to continue. It's easier to make myself let him go while believing he has found someone else and is pursuing the happiness he has chosen for himself -- but I am capable of doing hard things and I can let him go even knowing my absence sorrows and hurts him if I deem that is the only way I can take a stand to not allow us to be used to cause pain to each other due to the toxic cycles created by third party boundaries and choices. I know it looks and feels cruel but.... What could he possibly say if there's still no change to the dynamics of me being ostracized from the central parts of his life and the toxic pattern that created and has perpetuated since Oct 2018? As I see it, feeding into those toxic patterns to continue is far crueller than saying "I love you but this isn't healthy for either of us and as long as this is making it so I'm not welcome in your life, the kindest thing I can do for both of us is to let you go and we will walk separate life paths for this life."

I dunno. Maybe there's a better answer I don't see. I'm not infallible. And this isn't a choice of immutable precog or prophecy gifts telling me it MUST be this way, it's a choice built of head over heart logic and intuition and acknowledging how much time has passed without any movement to fix what Britt broke back in 2018. But six years is a long time waiting for any healing or change from others with more agency to choose/create paths for me to feel welcomed into his life rather than ostracized from central core aspects of it. So I'm seizing what is within my own agency to choose and that is to refuse to play the games at all and to walk away from where I am unwanted and unwelcome even if that requires me releasing any hope of reunion with him this life or belief that maybe this life we could choose a life path together.  And that includes holding that line even when he tries to reach me in dream space without also showing me a path that isn't constrained by the same old toxic recurring patterns. 

 But anyway. The snow is beautiful makes my heart happy, I'm cozy and have things to get done but also not (yet) time stressed about leaving in eight days to spend nearly three weeks out in the Seattle area for the holidays. (I technically fly out and back three weeks apart, but only twenty days in Seattle area because my flight home is a red eye.) Time for more reading L. Frank Baum novels and tea drinking and eventually coffee that's more of a brunch than brekkie. And maybe an afternoon nap if I get tired enough or I'll just sleep whenever I get home from work Mon night into Tues morning....

 O! Also! To not fall too far behind! Here is last week's astro poets and this week's:

"Week of 11/24 in Libra: You can go anywhere. But where you most want to be is here. That’s what you can find and so you will. The sweetest love is all over you. It is bright pink and blue and makes a beautiful and positive opening."

 "Week of 11/24 in Pisces: So many poems are about this light. Let yourself fall into the poem. You are not ready to give up. So don’t. Let the light that comes in be the poem of yourself."

"Week of 12/1 in Libra: Something that extends into the future. There’s a sense of it all that can be. You quieted the orange in the light. You told stories that you most wanted to. Some of it was said just because you wanted to."

"Week of 12/1 in Pisces: You hold it all in front of you like a cord. So many tiny wishes and a final moment in blue. But if there are things glowing there are. So be it so. So you can as a friend and as a counting measure in blue."