I've been quiet here again recently. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Not certain.... Just an isness thing, lol.

I did start writing a couple times then stopped, got distracted, and never posted. None of it is really all that important, I don't think. The first was a catch up post on the 18th (about getting to see the Broadway tour of Hamilton and Chris Thile solo shows last week Thurs and Sat, respectively, but then stopped part way through writing it and kind of forgot about it. (Both of which were AMAZING!!!! Minor critique on the Hamilton tour is that they sped up the tempo, especially on the ballads. And I understand it's a loooong show and if you're not going to cut songs, which you shouldn't, then you have to shave off time where you can. But also, it was noticeable the tempo change and the lack of sustaining any notes or brushing over the intentional pauses/silences in the original writing.  Still a fantastic show and the cast was really great but the sped up tempo made my hackles go up a little.) But it wasn't particularly important.

And then I started writing Mon night a separate post while curled up on the couch because it was so cold outside but got up to put the kettle on for some tea after I finished my wine and completely forgot to come back to it. Whoops. I don't think anything in it was SUPER important, but here you can have it if you want it (though I think it might just be a lot of words with little substance) :

"But tonight I am staying home with my animals  because it is bitterly cold, in the negative Fahrenheit raw temperatures, the sort of cold that when I try to take the dog outside to the bathroom, I have to bundle us both up and then take the car out of the heated garage, drive us to the circle, get out for her to do her business which she might not be able to do, and then bundle us both back into the car to drive over to the vins to throw out her poop bag, then drive the car back into the heated underground garage. I wish I wasn't exaggerating. My last dog, Audrey Pupburn, who was at least half Yorkie had hair (which could grow out long for winter) not fur with no undercoat would on days like this go put her nose to the balcony door when I asked her if she wanted to go outside and if the balcony doors were too cold on her nose she would back up growling and hugging then refuse to go out until the door met her nose test. As in, she would nonviolent protest by hiding, laying down, forcing me to drag or carry her out the door, and down the stairs and outdoors.... And since she never had an accident while refusing to go outside in such cold, I learned not to push her on it, to just gently ask her and trust her feelings when she tested the balcony door with her nose. My current dog, Waffles Finnuala O'Whoofigans, is somehow even less suited for bitterly cold Arctic blast temperatures than Audrey Anne Pupburn was... Waffles was born in Texas then brought to Washington shelter/humane societies (the south is far worse than the north for shelters and spay/neuter programs so a lot of northern shelters have paretnerships with southern high kill shelters to bring animals north where demand for pets is higher and spay/neuter programs including TNT are more common) which is where my sister's family adopted her during the COVID pandemic. She is a short legged long torso mutt listed as standard Dachshund mix on her adoption forms but her mom was a standard Dachshund pittie mix and her dad was some sort of white terrier and she clearly has some beagle and maybe some cattle hound in her.  What she ISN'T is designed for Wisconsin winters -- she has practically no undercoat and her belly and inside of her legs have very bare skin like most dachshunds and her body type is unusual enough I haven't been able to find a dog snow suit that fits her and most dog coats leave bare the parts of her with the least fur..... If I try to take her out the front door to the sidewalk, before we can reach the sidewalk grass for her to even try to pee she will start full body shivering leaning into me and eventually not able to move until she just lasts down collapses shivering so badly she needs to  be carried back inside and can't move or walk until she warms up. She also does that if she tries to go out to the backyard at my parents house and even sometimes at work (though the yard is closer there with no steps)  when it's stupidly cold and I need to go out with her carry her back inside when she starts full body shivering freezes up can't move her feet or legs.  She is absolutely not a dog designed for the Arctic vortex moving down -- anything getting into single digit Fahrenheit temps or below I have to be extra cautious with her I have learned.... Friday and Saturday are supposed to be worse  with Friday being absolutely terrible highs may not get above 0F and Wednesday theu Friday I will have both dogs until my parents get back from Phoenix -- I may honestly just keep the dogs with me and work all night not leave to go home to my cat until after people are there at work to spend the day with Sophie rather than take them to the house overnight.... That currently seems the best plan to most easily be able to get the dogs outside for their business and bring Waffles back in without her full body shivering unable to move.... 

Anyway. I tried to take her outside earlier this evening during the "warmest" part of the day (2F) and she was jaunty and excited needing to go but froze up shivering before she used the potty and wouldn't even step in the snow just lay down and then rolled over asking me to carry her back in to the car and hold her while she shook from the cold.... So my plan for tomorrow is we will head to work early afternoon so she can go out there when it will be warmed and I can get some hours in across the afternoon since it's supposed to snow fairly heavily for a bit overnight.  I feel terrible about it, because she's just not going to the bathroom and holding it in for longer than she should, but also I tried when it was the warmest it would be until like 10am tomorrow getting back up that warm and she was still THAT cold couldn't even with it so there's no way she could handle -6F it's getting down to tonight.... Thurs night through Sat is going to be extra difficult with her since it will be even colder. 

So right now, I'm just at home with my fur babies listening to Eric's songs and reading. I made a big batch of slow cooker chili across today and I am finishing up the last of the half bottle of red wine I opened to deglaze the meat and to drink with it. I actually like best pairing red wines (like a pinot noir) with chili even more than beer -- probably because I cook chili I the winter at times I want cozy room temp or warmer beverages...  I cook chili a lot actually when the weather gets cold because it's super cozy easy comforting freezes well to just make a big batch and future me will happily enjoy leftovers -- and every time I make it it's different! I generally make it very spicy and use beef and black beans, but like today I'd run out of kidney beans never bought more since last time I made it so I used chickpeas to replace them. (I always keep dried black beans, chickpeas, and lentils in the pantry cupboard -- as much if more more of a staple to always have on hand than rice for me.)  But I'm very non traditional in how I get the blend of flavors in it -- like I almost always put some coffee and dark beer in the beans with tomatoes/peppers slow cooking mix with the spices and then I always add red wine to the brown butter ground beef. And if I need to thicken it up round out the flavors I use a small amount of chocolate instead of flour or cornstarch. I usually brown butter slow cook caramelize the onions before they get added in, sometimes with beer if I have one on hand but most of the time just butter and diced onions over low heat. Also sometimes mushrooms sliced smaller cooked with the onions for extra umami flavor/depth. And sometimes squash or pumpkin if I have some to use up because it cooks in nicely adds complex sweetness and extra vitamin a and c. Chili, curry, and even pasta sauces are a place you can easily sneak in squash, carrot, tomato, mushroom, and even some greens like spinach or chard for vegetable hating picky eaters if you chop them fine enough cook them down enough, lol.  I usually use frozen death peppers (I grow super hot peppers, think Carolina reaper and ghost peppers and Trinidad scorpion, alongside habaneros and poblanos and sometimes sweet peppers so they cross pollinate into a deliciously fruity super spicy hybrids of my own that most people just call my death peppers and death habaneros since they are spicier than most habaneros) and tomatoes from previous summer harvests rather than canned tomatoes or paste or fresh tomatoes -- I want the flavor and for it to cook down to mush which is why I freeze my excess tomato harvest whole for cooking down from frozen into chili and curries and sauces where you want the flavor/nutrients but don't need the structural integrity of a fresh tomato.... I also use ketchup and hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce and a small amount of soy sauce in my chili based on tasting it and if I don't have chili powder in my cabinet I mix my own with some garlic powder and cumin and paprika and cayenne and usually something smoky like gochugaru peppers or the Trader Joe's smoked ghost pepper grinder... This is why it tastes different every time I cook it but always umami slow cooked delicious whatever my mood is when I make it. And as you can tell, I am not a chili purist so I'm very much pro cheese and sour cream (or if you're out of sour cream, you can use cream cheese or even mayonnaise) and I love it with crackers (I prefer oyster crackers over saltine style but controversial take is that my favorite crackers are Goldfish on my chili, usually I but the whole grain or colored with veggies to pretend it's a healthy thing to have in my pantry; I also really love to put Goldfish topping my tomato soup and red pepper soup for a bit of cheesy crunchy with it) or cornbread or Cincinnati style over spaghetti noodles or filling/topping potatoes or with a fried egg on top if I'm eating it with a veggie hash for breakfast...  I have opinions about chili and I make amazing chili no matter what I use in it, but I'm definitely not a purist about it -- I've even been know to add curry powder into the flavor meld of flavors to help it balance, lol. Like, it should be hearty umami rich spicy meld of meat/beans/nightshades/caramelized onions/spices but within those parameters there's a lot of room to play to get the complex balance I want.... I do love a good green chili (especially with pulled chicken or turkey) but I make it as rarely as I make green curries -- I order them from other people more than I cook them myself because I specialize in other varieties of chili/curry flavor profiles that usually end up in the red/yellow/spicy arena and that's alright. Anyway, I make delicious chili and I tend to make it whenever it gets super cold and the body just desires cozy hygge meals -- but no two batches I make are ever identical and I can't give you a recipe because I make it up as I go along within certain parameters, lol. It's the sort of thing you will miss when I am gone and never be able to repeat no matter how many times you watch me make it....

So anyway. Tonight is stupidly stupidly cold outside but I am at home very loving cozy hygge with my dog and my cat (who is in his version of feline nirvana heaven having all day and night with me home AND Eric's music playing) happy full of delicious chili and agape snuggly wine drunk on the last of the red wine from the half bottle I used in the chili tonight. (Yes, only 1 can of beer and half a bottle of wine both used parts of it in cooking and tonight I could feel it even first sips of the beer and the wine. Fun fact: women metabolize alcohol differently at different parts of their cycles -- sometimes they can drink men under the table not feel it and sometimes a single beer or half a glass of wine will make them feel tipsy. If you're a woman, learn your cycle and be extra cautious with liquor before/during/right after ovulation depending on when your hormone shift affects your alcohol metabolism most and if you're a man, keep an eye on the women in your life when they are about halfway between periods and don't let them drive or trust strangers because they are much more light weight than their normal for a 3-7 day span in there depending on the woman and her hormones shift. But like, you're not crazy, it's a biological fact for how stronger/progesterone levels affect metabolism of sugars/alcohol and if men take estrogen/progesterone shots they also can fluctuate cyclically in the same ways for what their alcohol tolerance looks like.)

Ummm. Anyway so let's get caught up on what I've been up to recently then." 

And then that's when I got up and forgot about the post or trying to integrate it with what else has been going on in my world, lol.

I stayed at work all night Tues night with both the dogs because my parents were leaving home at like 4am for a work trip to Arizona and we're still here until Sarah arrives and I can do pupper handoff and let them know that the dogs had breakfast and Sophie had her thyroid med. I also stayed at work all night tonight (I'm at work still writing this actually) because of how drastic the Arctic blast over Wisconsin (and the general area from Thurs night thru Sun and it would be -19F actual temperature (even lower windchill real feel) at 9am or so to try to get the dogs into my cold car to take them into work. I haven't decided yet about if I'm going to go home during the daytime to check on my cat or just stay at work -- the warmest hours of the day are around 3-4pm when it will be -10F. "Warmest." HA! My parents flight is supposed to get back in around 10pm tomorrow night when i need to hand off their dog and then I intend to just stay home the remainder of Fri night thru Sun morning. I do have to go downtown extra early on Sun for svd training at 10am (before brunch at 11:30 then symphony at 2:30.)  I was originally scheduled for Sat morning but with the cold, I rescheduled it for tonight (Thurs night) but then had a migraine with the high pressure cold front moving in. So Sun morning it will be rather than having to walk between my parked car and the building in the bitter bitter cold and then not even knowing if my car will start (even if parked in a garage) and where to be until I can get AAA to come help. But SVD requires in person training and that's when we sign out oath soooo.... Then I have SVD in the mornings on Mon, Tues, Weds next week. AND on Tues night heading to Racine to see Gadan at JJ'S on Tues night. I may get scheduled for later in the week but don't yet know. And then Fri night would be Gadan at Viroqua (but we didn't buy tickets, waiting on weather and after seeing them at JJ'S to ticket level commit) and on Sat is an afternoon UW Badgers basketball game then that evening going to see Gadan in Madison at Bur Oak. The actual primary election that the SVD (helping people in permanent care facilities vote, which we do early as possible for them to be mailed ballots if they don't vote with us and still get it back in time) isn't until Feb 17 and even though I told them I was available all day, I'm scheduled 1p-close as an elections official which means I can vote early at the library or go vote that morning at my actual polling place for once if I want.On verra.

Speaking of politics. Like I said, worse before it gets better.... Still in the worse and people having to learn by direct accelerated experience from the past they never lived.  Do what you can do and what you have to do where you can. And understand this is a time of collective free will shifts for humanity as a whole NOT about the heroics of individual leaders/martyrs saving the day -- your strength is in your ally coalitions building mutual support. And I say that as someone generally distrustful of mob mentality because it is deadly unpredictable....

 

Ummm, let's see. I have a new online crush. Only a little bit joking, lol. Frederick Atkinson is very much physically my type (though I can't actually tell his age or sexuality) and he posts on socials about classic literature and history and his takes are very much aligned with mine. That said, he's in London and absolutely no real world connections whatsoever so very much an online limerance crush. He's just very much my type and I very much enjoy his insta posts and his lengthy youtube lectures/podcasts -- in fact he speaks fast enough and I like his voice enough that I watch his videos at regular speed not double speed like I watch/listen to most youtubes/podcasts I watch that aren't music or news. Often they're about periods of English history and literature I already know (this is part of my areas I have studied rather more extensively than most people after all) and books I already own and/or have read -- but I definitely have a list of his recommendations of those that are NOT part of my uni reading lists or that I have randomly acquired over time. I've been very much enjoying watching/listening to them. But that said, I mostly only watch them at work -- Griffin does NOT seem to like me watching Frederick's videos same as he doesn't like me watching/listening to Martin or Skerryvore generally and will try to knock my phone out of my hand or attack my hand holding my phone when I watch them. He is very firmly on team Eric as far as where I should be placing any interest in men and he makes his opinions known. (as well as his music preferences -- I'm sure my neighbors are starting to hate how few songs I have for us to listen to given that's all Griffin listens to and I won't add the Delta Rae songs to the playlist so long as hearing even the songs I loved from them makes me feel the "you're not welcome, you can't sit with us" ostracism bullying. I've tried, but as long as that's undealt with and I remain blocked on their instagram account, I can't even listen to the band's songs without feeling that they're not meant for me and I'm unwelcome as a fan and a listener. New songs are of no interest to me and I can't even listen to the songs I loved very much anymore because of it -- I haven't listened to anything of theirs since their 2023 tour when i went to the Madison show to take the hooks out of the girls from the entity based in Minneapolis/St. Paul that I'd ferreted out and marked and removed from this plane earlier that year. To the best of my ability, I give them what they asked for in blocking me on instagram all those years ago -- neither the girls nor anything from the band exist to me. Which means that the band's songs can't be added to the playlist of Eric's songs for me and my cat who adores his songs more than any other music I've ever tried to have my cat listen to. Is what it is. 

 Speaking of Griffin, he has been so loving and snuggly this last week! He had a rough day (until I promised the 2am deer i the snow and multiple gods and my cat that I wouldn't do anything stupid cross the Mississippi at the dark of the moon -- don't ask) but ever since I made and kept that promise, Griffin has since just become a bundle of cuddly love. even with my schedule being a bit messed up with watching Sophie for 3 nights/3 days this week. 

 I haven't yet figured out what to cook up for the cold on Fri/Sat while staying at home (especially since I just made a batch of chili on Mon for the cold) but I'm thinking maybe some fish curry based on what I have on hand... 

 O! And also, next week (Sun-Fri) is Madison restaurant week (3 course meals at some local restaurants -- $20 at lunch and $30-50 for dinners) which is exciting! I do always enjoy Restaurant Week! I think that current plan is lunch at Buck & Honey on the way out of town to Racine, lunch at Craftsman on Fri even if we don't head to Viroqua. Crissy and I are excited for the dinner options at Heritage and my mum and I are excited for the dinner options at The Statehouse but don't have plans yet for exactly which days we're thinking to do it...

I don't really have anything further to say about the subjects of my most recent posts. Why would I have anything more to say at this point? What has changed? Nothing. Exactly. (Although there has been a lot of random flooding of love down the bond, especially in the early mornings.) So I've just been focusing on my lived life and those within it (and yes, a new online crush limerance for a tall lanky blonde British boy who can take nerdy about literature and history) and not letting me think about those who aren't in my life or even trying to be in my life even just to visit at this point. And the world is such an obvious polarity of what's going on that writing about it here won't help or change anything.   That is what it is. And we're still not yet at the worst of the things I've precogged.

Anyway. I clearly don't have any point in writing here, just rambling because I realized it had been a little while again. Stay safe/warm wherever you are this weekend -- whether you're in the 50F windchills "you will get frostbite in under 10mins of exposed skin" area like me or in the severe winter storm pushed super far south where they don't know how to handle or drive on snow/ice because they don't generally need to know how to drive on it.  

 I think that a large part of my doubting and overthinking uncertainty in him is because.... 

Because it's not that neither of us has dated other people or because we couldn't love other people find a different sort of happiness with those choices. It's just I did so eyes wide open never lying to myself. I always knew that there was a part of myself tied up in the bond inaccessible to anyone else and everything else was denying the bond and there would always be a hollowness empty space shaped like him inside any other relationship I built -- everyone else was only ever because I didn't believe I could have the promise of the bond. Either couldn't have it at that time because our paths hadn't crossed or didn't think I could have it at all this life. But I never once lied to myself, I always loved and considered relationship building knowing it was a distant second best could never eradicate or bury or destroy the bond and the promise for could bes within it. 

That's not how he has loved other women, by his own admissions. He has always genuinely believed that whatever relationship he was in, that love was the only love for him while he was caught up in it, that he had found the great love of his life -- he loved in a way that either denied the bond or lied to himself about it. I wouldn't have believed him and forced myself to let him go and try to deaden the bond if at those times he didn't genuinely believe whatever woman he was enamoured of was the one and only greatest love of his life while he was in those relationships. He believed it completely and so I believed him -- you can't lie to the bond nor can it lie to me, no more than I could lie to him via the bond because he'd always know my true feelings/beliefs echoing inside him if he listens within his inmost self -- it only echoes in us the truths of whatever the other is genuinely feeling at that time.

And that's why I doubt him, doubt his love, doubt his awareness of the bond, doubt that he actually desires me, doubt that he won't just find some other woman to be enamoured of. Because he's done it before and made himself fully believe and feeling it deeply enough that my only answer to him feeling what he felt was to say, "clearly you believe this and therefore the bond connecting between our souls isn't something you value or desire in your life so it's best it be rendered dormant so you can pursue what you have chosen for yourself this life." If he could feel that way and believe it, either denying the bond entirely or lying to himself that what he felt for someone else was the bond, then why shouldn't I expect him to do it again? What will have changed? Why should I trust and believe anything is different? After all, he completely believed it before each time that someone else was the one for him -- how can I trust it won't happen again when he gets lonely and bored and desperate for anyone who sort of fits what he thinks he wants for him to invest his heart in so completely that it echoes down the bond he once again believes he has found the one he wants who is everything to him? 

Is it any surprise that even his silences make me question and get defensive? That hearing the dropping sand in the hourglass doesn't make me believe he's finding his way back to me via the bond but instead it makes me prickly defensive waiting for the shoe to drop on him landing on whoever he's grown lonely and desperate enough to truly believe is his one true love he's been seeking? 

I have never dated nor considered dating blindly while lying to myself about the bond and the power and pull of it. He has. Many times.Which makes me doubt him, both in his silences and when he believes he has found the love of his life.... 

Why else would I be so ready to give up on him and to look elsewhere and so quick to promise that the moment he tangles another woman around his heart again so it echoes down the bond, I'll block her energy and anyone she's twined through from reaching me and cut him off from the bond as thoroughly as if it were fully dormant again? Because I expect him to do that again, I expect that choice of him and I expect him to fully believe in it when he does it. Because that has been his pattern. And I don't expect anything else from him anymore, I often doubt if he even recognizes the bond for what it is. I know he feels the absence of it when he can't reach it but he hasn't shown any recognition of what the presence of it is....at least not in any ways that I have seen. 

That's why I doubt him. Because we've both dated other people and loved other people -- but I never lied to myself or anyone else that everything else was just a distant second place shadow compared to what's in the bond. And he's never seemed to feel that or understand it. He's always completely believed someone else he chose because he was lonely and desperate and found someone he could idolize his idea of them showed up right then and thus that she was the love of his life until the absence of the bond became too much for him to ignore or lie to himself about.  

And that's why I doubt him, doubt his love, doubt his choices, doubt his silences, doubt that I won't have to once again deny the bond and do whatever needs to be done to silence it. I doubt him because he genuinely truly believed in his past loves as the only person he ever wanted to love in complete denial of the bond, and that's not a lie I was ever willing to tell myself in anyone else I've ever loved.

 That's why I doubt him and doubt his love. It's why I am full of defensiveness and doubts where there should only be faith and trust. 

It's not what I want to be true, but I'm not going to lie to myself about it. Maybe I should be acknowledging, "yes this has been true and is currently true -- how do we change things so it's no longer true?" but I don't see how I can do that when what made it true and what it's built on are about his choices and feelings and beliefs and me having to face them as being his truth at those times.... Like, how am I supposed to go about changing that? Lie to myself about his truths? Force his truth or his choices to be something other than what he makes them? It's not my nature to knowingly lie to myself or to coerce free will choices.  

So am I just supposed to stay full of doubts and defensiveness and trying to move forward with the expectation that whatever I choose for myself I'll be forced to deny the bond silence it again because I'm expecting from him the same patterns he's always chosen this life? Like what am I supposed to do here? What else do I have to go on? Why should I believe that anything has changed, that this time is different, that he recognizes and values the bond? Why would I believe any of those things to be his truth now when they never have been before? Why would I expect anything other than to expect he will fall back into repeating his old patterns again when he meets someone he can idolize his idea of her to fill his loneliness and desperation and make himself genuinely believe she's the love of his life he's always been seeking? 

Why shouldn't I be full of doubts and defensive when I listen to the overthinking or slip back into the martyring of making me let him go preemptively when he acts in ways to make me believe there can be no place for me in his life? Because deep down, I still believe that he's going to fall for someone else convince himself until he genuinely believes that she is the one for him and I'm going to be left having to deny and silence the bond yet again to stop the overlays from reaching me of his emotions within his choices. And I'm so very tired of that being the only choice open to me based on his choices, so sometimes even me giving up on him and the bond instead intentionally choosing second best feels a better bet than staying stuck in this stupid toxic cycle. 

 I dunno. I've thought myself into a corner again and all I have to show for it is giving myself a headache and a stomach ache over it all, making it harder for me to keep the bubble of my protected space keeping it free of the outside energy currents of this moment of space/time in history... I'm going to go lay down for a bit and let my fur babies curl up on me like a living breathing weighted blanket, maybe take a nap or just rest and meditate until my natural optimism bubbles back up to the surface until I believe that maybe he has grown and changed enough this time is different. And then I will once again have my typical well of energy/chi so I can keep my home sanctuary secure and I can be smiling happy when I go see other humans this evening. 

But anyway. I'm sorry for my doubting him. I wish I didn't. You have no idea how much I wish I didn't. But I do. And that's at the deepest root I can find for the doubt and why I can't seem to see any reason to think anything has changed in his patterns as he has shown his truth and his choices to lead him. I'd like to be wrong this time. I just don't always have it in me to find reasons to believe I am.

Astro Poets Horoscope:

"Week of 1/11 in Libra: Something that had kindness. An eternity of function. But not of force. This love is forceful. This certain spark inevitable."

"Week of 1/11 in Pisces: You didn’t know. And that’s not the problem. You will know now. Talk it over. Say it with pink and purple."

 

 

 I'm not one to feel fear (even when I should) because I very much have a "you do what you have to do in this situation and there's no time for fear" philosophy in a crisis. But there's a part of me right now that is having a hard time with the fears of the what ifs... "What if he's fallen for another girl again?" "What if he doesn't want me or miss me?" "What if he chooses another path without me in it for this lifetime of his?" "What if either of us were to be with other people and the overlays started again?" "What if I have to do everything in my power to deny the bond and weaken it try to render it dormant again because he's chosen to fall for another woman build his life with her?" 

It's so hard when I've tried to quiet and deaden the bond, it takes so much energy and it hurts so deeply and I can't do it completely the way thr Oak King did that first time. And I can't hardly do it at all if Eric is fighting me on it -- I learned that the hard way in the past when he fought me about it poured himself into keeping the bond alive trying to reach me. I can only have even partial success at rendering the bond asleep when he's distracted chooses other things so he's not caring or paying attention to what I'm doing or to the bond because he thinks to build himself a life without it. And I'm afraid he'll make choices which will require me to have to try to find a way to do it again. It's so exhausting and painful for me to do it -- this last time I cheated and used the Morrigan's "work smarter not harder" work around to block anyone from reaching me with the energy of the lamprey (his then girlfriend he thought was the love of his life -- in dream space she always showed up as a lamprey twined around him feeding on his energy or on anyone who let her attach to them) wound through them. And it only worked for rendering the bond inert for as long as he had her energy twined through him, which really wasn't very long after I did that. It wasn't exhausting to do it that way, it was a once and done use of energy not like the constant energy drain it was fighting to keep the bond asleep while he was fighting to wake it back up reach me down it.... But it still hurt me in my heart and my soul to do that, even if it didn't create a constant energy drain.

But I would be dishonest if I didn't admit that it scares me to think he might be making choices for his life that require it of me again to deny the bond... Because I would if his choices made it clear that was necessary. But it wouldn't be easy even if I knew it to be ethically right in the circumstances, it would hurt, and it would be hard -- and now I know just how deep it hurts and how difficult an energy drain it is for me to maintain unless I can find another anchor point to refuse reaching me.

I don't want it to be asked of me again. I don't want to do it again....and I'm afraid his choices will ask it of me again, that he's already made/making choices that will require it of me and I just can't see them yet.

It's probably stupid of me. But fear is an emotion that feeds on itself to grow stronger. And I don't have any ways to counter it tell it it's completely wrong and it needs to shut up. I just know he's done it before and I don't see what's to stop him from choosing that again now with some other girl and then I'll be once again left with having to choose between the overlays/dreams I receive from him or having to do whatever is necessary to render the bond inert/dormant. And I don't want to have to face that choice again and to have to try to deny myself what I want and instead suppress the bond by whatever means I can. 

And so I find myself afraid of his choices. Even though I don't even have any idea about what they are right now. Which is stupid. And I know it's stupid. But that doesn't change it being part of my truth right now.

 This morning after I showered, I was feeling all restless inside not able to settle to focus and read -- just mindlessly opening and closing apps on my phone but not really settling to doom scroll socials or even play mindless games or sudokus for dopamine or anything. And then I decided to get dressed and hated everything I own and then I decided it's not the clothing I'm upset about, it's me and my body and I need to do something about that but too restless not able to focus to do any exercises or dance, so decided to just find something to wear. Finally I chose an outfit based on my feelings about the weather and got dressed because Mikaela would be arriving within the next hour and a half whether I was dressed or not. And then I went to make tea, still internally restless and I sat back down to read and picked up my phone in dissatisfaction instead of the book right next to me and then had this internal flare up at myself started chasing me, "Stop it Dani! Just stop it! You're in a book slump, haven't even finished a book since you got home from the Pac Northwest, and do you know why? It's because you're denying yourself. You're trying to make you read and finish books that you got it into your head you ought to read and they don't interest you enough right now because the outside world is shite and you just want an escapist fantasy where the bad guys can be defeated and a romantic happy ending where the destined loves win. And that's okay, you have lots of those you haven't read yet. Just stop fucking denying yourself what you want in the name of ought to and pick a damn fantasy duology or trilogy and devour it because you know what you want and trying to pretend with ought tos is just making you fritter away time not getting anywhere damnit!!! You're allowed to choose to have what you actually desire!"

And then on that wave of defiance against my internalized ought tos, I grabbed up another book started in on it and got so engrossed into it I was walking around reading to make the second steep of my tea instead of doing anything productive while waiting on the kettle (this is one of my ADHD hacks I discovered work for me -- I do small tidying up chore tasks racing the clock of water boiling when the kettle whistles at me that it's time to steep tea and I'm done unless I want to come back to it.) And I was reading and waiting on the stove timer to tell me my tea was done steeping and happily munching some christmas cookies from the freezer (I was gone at the holidays but my best friend always bakes lots of christmas cookies and she left me six different kinds she baked that freeze well in my freezer for when I got home) when it suddenly hit me: 

None of those big feels was about my reading habits. 

None of it. 

Not my internal restlessness. Not my anger. Not my lecturing me. Not my conclusion. 

I was mad at society accepting what people think they can't change even when everyone hates it knows it to be toxic and cruel. And I was mad at myself restless because I had once again let myself listen to the ought tos of the assumptions around what Eric wants to build his life back into my mind to plague me into the martyrdom of letting him go looking elsewhere not claiming what I desire. And all because of one stupid moment of feeling unwelcome ostracized from him over something that was a dynamic created years ago with no damn thing to do with what he or I wanted then or want now. 

I wasn't angry about my book choices, I was angry at them as being a symptom of me falling into a pattern of heeding the ought tos rather than listening to my heart about what I damn well desire to fill my finite life with. 

Because it's crystal clear to me what I want. It's just the thinking I can't have it or that what I want doesn't want me back that makes me listen to the internalized ought tos. 

And that's fucking stupid. Especially if it keeps me in a discontent holding pattern not able to do anything with myself. 

Fuck it. I'm allowed to choose what I actually desire damnit! And I know what I want. I want reunion with Eric this life and a chance to build a shared life path. 

And I'm a damn fool to internalize any arguments to the contrary. Even when they come from my own logical rational fear goaded mind telling me I can't have what I want. 

It wasn't my reading choices I was angry at making me restless, it was what they represented to me of a pattern of decision making since I got home that had nothing to do with my desires. 

So fuck it. I'm going to read this dark fantasy retelling of fairytales duology. And I'm going to believe that there's a way to get what I want and not be blocking my own shot. You miss 100% of the things you talk yourself out of even trying for. Fuck that.  My polar bear and I deserve better odds than what we get if we don't even have the courage to try for what we desire. So fuck the internalized ought tos. Life is too short not to choose wholeheartedly what you know you actually desire. In love even more than in books. 

Now. I'm at a chapter break and I texted Mikaela my breakfast bagel order and shared my epiphany that it wasn't my books upsetting me and my phone is at 17% waiting on M to text me she's here and I haven't ground the coffee yet for when she gets here. So I'm going to go plug my phone in, follow his profile again because I want it, put on the playlist of Eric's solo songs/downloads to hear his voice and his words, and start making coffee and after breakfast I'll go back to devouring this book because damnit I DO know what my heart wants and I am allowed to fucking choose that to fill my life with once I know what I desire!! 

P. S. When Mikaela got here with breakfast bagels, she told me excitedly after I told her coffee wasn't ready yet because I got distracted "For whatever reason, I just feel Audrey so strongly. And I've had such bad anxiety these last couple weeks. And then suddenly this morning I just suddenly felt Audrey surrounding me in spirit and so much puppy joy from her!" Her timing on feeling Audrey's spirit was exactly when my temper broke and I realized what I was restless discontented upset at me over. And it's interesting because as she got older and would sometimes get sad when we listened to Billy Joel and George Winston would ask me, "but when do I get to meet my dad?" so as she started to feel her age I promised Audrey Pupburn that if I was able to get things together and have a kid this life before I hit my biological clock couldn't have kids, she could come back to me in her next life as my son -- and if not I'd find her as a puppy again if I never had kids of my own. Also for the nearly 15 years of her life, from when she was just a small 12 week old puppy, I always teased my Pisces pup that she got all her intense emo from her dad not from me and she told me when she got sick at the end that she was sorry she never got to meet her dad in that body but she was going to hold me to my promise use all her efforts between bodies to make it come true and she was excited to meet her dad someday in her next body and see if he really is where she got her emo from.  So I found that timing interesting that I had that burning moment of clarity about me being stupid settling not choosing what I want and at the same time Mikaela felt Audrey's spirit strongly joyously taking away her anxiety of the past couple weeks.

P. P. S. Whitten's For the Wolf was exactly the right book for the mood I was in this morning. Even for what I ended up deciding to wear because I was upset that it's so warm we're getting nearly an inch of rain in January instead of the more seasonally appropriate snow. 

P. P. P. S. Just realized. So this Venus cazimi then Venus meeting Mars (and tomorrow the Mars cazimi) is all happening right directly on my natal moon in the center of it (Yeah. Moon in Capricorn. First quarter moon. I was supposed to be born a Virgo during a waning crescent moon but I was late insisted on being a Libra with a waxing quarter moon in Capricorn. It's probably why I'm a little too good at being stoic through emotional compartmentalizing to do what I feel has to be done. But also, people talk about Cancer being the moon sign, but Capricorn is the sister sign opposite so if Cancer is like the fullest moon of the zodiac then Capricorn moons are the new moon of the zodiac, and I'm way more sensitive to which signs the moon is affecting the intensity/shapes of my emotions than any Cancer placements I've ever met.) anyway. I just realized. My fiery response this morning was during the Venus Mars conjunction and my realization it's time to clear out the idea there's no place for me in his life as toxic happened at the Venus cazimi. I tend to take astrology as interesting theory but not verifiable but sometimes the correlations are too stunningly accurate to discount. 

 I did tell you for quite a while now that what I precogged coming in was intense and a lot of bad at the start of the coming year and I didn't want to talk about it here... This is only the beginning of what I have seen will be happening at the national/global level. It gets worse before it gets better. But then it does get better. (For those who survive to the other side of it all.) But we're still in the time of the young souled people who didn't live more than three past lives through human history to crash course through the lessons they missed so they can make informed choices to build better as a species level choices.

Which is probably why at the personal level there's such a collective push toward healing and self-integration and the shadow work of where we're standing in the way of our own desires and dreams.  Myself included. Even with my self-imposed blinders on precogging any happy surprises (and sports) in my life, I'm feeling the urge to face and purge and heal the blocks (some of them built across past lifetimes that had to be learned then but were taken too far so it's time to unlearn -- including some of the ones related to the bond and/or related to him making life path choices that create a life with no place for me in it) I have helped to create from getting to the future paths I DESIRE to walk rather than the ones we have been on. Because if we don't do that, time is running out to ever have the chance to do it in these bodies in this lifetime. But good news: it does feel like the hard work of dismantling our own unexamined false premises is happening. The personal fatelines are actually so bright right now. If you can't see them, you have no idea. But I promise you they are! 

It will get better at a social/global level. But it will get worse first. And even more in your face symbolism in case you don't see the lines clearly yet. And if it doesn't get better, the Earth Mother herself will force her hand to fix the imbalances. So let's just hope humanity as a species can learn the lessons to choose better ways. Before the choices are removed from human free will options.

 

In other news, I should pack up so the dog and I head home from work fairly soon -- Mikaela is planning to come over tomorrow (well today now) to hang out with me and my fur babies since she doesn't have classes on Thursdays again this semester

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"In this new year, may we rally the courage to finally begin what we've held only in our dreams, and the tenderness to root it in compassion. May we remember our interconnection, shared joy, and love for the world, building our future accordingly." 

That's from the conclusion of Juliana McCarthy's New Year's Eve email on the Astrology of 2026  (the link is for the extended article including the quote -- she's one of my favorite astrologers, has been for years, for her analysis and her optimism and the poetry in the way she expresses how she understands the astrology; you should read it if you're looking for hope to spark your faith in what this year can bring you/us/the world) but I liked it as a prayer and intention and mantra for the year to come. So I wanted to share it because it puts into words what I desire to be chosen in this coming year -- chosen by me and by my polar bear and by everyone I care about and everyone I don't yet know well enough to care about in a personal way. 

 

So just one little thing I wanted to say in case it was misunderstood: me saying that when i made my choices to try to leave and/or deaden the bond it was always at times he was genuinely believing he'd found the love of his life in another woman or he has been making plans for his career wherein I am made to feel not welcomed or wanted so there's no place for me within his life, I didn't mean that in a shifting blame way or anything. I take accountability of my own choices and my own actions and I am the one who has chosen in those past times to try to pull away and quiet the bond while I  leave. Those are my choices -- regardless my reasons I felt I had for it, I was the one who made those choices and I am the one who did it. I said it because... it matters to me that you understand it was never anything out of intentional cruelty or even abandoning him when I could afterward feel the turmoil and sorrow/pain it generated in him when the connection felt disappeared or unreachable to him. I only ever did it at times when I genuinely believed because he genuinely believed that he was going to choose a future path for him on which there was no place for me, paths that led away from us reuniting in the real world quotidian this lifetime. I only ever acted that way from the place of thinking he was genuinely choosing what he wanted for himself and I was trying to do the best by both of us that I could given that truth of his choices. I genuinely thought at such times that i was doing the best I could by the both of us given his choices and what he internally believed at the time about those choices. I didn't expect him to notice, let alone be upset, by my choices to disengage and try to put the bond dormant during the times I believed there to be no place for me in the life he was building himself with the choices he was making. There is no time I have acted in that way in knowledge and belief that it would upset or hurt him for me to be trying to dim or deaden the bond. 

 And I just want to be clear about that. 

 We are all of us, no matter our gifts or our abilities to occasionally transcend into the collective unconscious and the allness of everything, still constrained by our own subjective lenses of what we can know and see and believe. None of us are omniscient while incarnating. And I never once made that choice while knowing or believing that my actions were going to cause him distress to lose the flow of the bond between us.  I always did so in the belief that I was accepting his genuine choices (and/or those he allowed to be made for him) for himself and doing what would be best by the both of us given those choices for his life path. 

It doesn't mean I was right, it doesn't mean I wasn't mistaken, it doesn't mean I didn't cause quite a lot of unhappiness and distress in both of us by choosing to try to give up on the bond and put it to sleep for this lifetime.... But I never meant to do any of those things and I certainly never meant to cause him any pain and I thought only I would pay for choosing to give up on what I desired most in this lifetime. And, I definitely have a very Spartan stoic streak to my character of accepting cruelty I inflict on my own self and denying my own desires in the name of doing what I believe to be ethically right... It doesn't extend to cruelty toward others, but it does toward myself. Which is why I say I knew how deeply it would hurt me to try to deaden the bond and give up on it for this lifetime, but I didn't believe it would upset him or believe he would even notice given his choices for himself. 

I can't undo the past but I can learn from it to try to do better now and in the future. And I think that me believing there's no place for me in his life has hurt us both and sown much despair in both our hearts and I don't want to choose that any longer. He's free to choose what he wants and I admit I don't know what that is right now (all I'm getting from him via the bond is certainty and commitment to whatever he's set his heart on and sudden unexpected outpouring floods of love from him down the bond -- but I have no idea what that translates into in his everyday choices and actions) but for MY choices I'm choosing to question that idea I thought an insurmountable block and to stop believing there's no place for me in his life and instead focus on how we could create space for me in his life and space for him in mine and to try to figure out how we bring our life paths together moving forward.  For as long as he wants that. (I'm not changeable, I always want that. Have always wanted it and will always want it. In all the tenses. But I'll only fight for trying to to make it real so long as it's also what he wants, what he would choose for himself.)

 Well. Yes. I suppose that perhaps instead of just accepting the premise, "there is no place for me in his life as he is choosing to build it" I should have questioned it and it didn't necessarily have to lead me to the conclusion, "it is best for him if I let him go so he can have the happiness he is seeking and has chosen" and perhaps things would have gone differently across these years if I had instead responded to the premise with questioning instead of conclusions. Perhaps it would have been better if I had instead asked, "how can a place be found for me in his life?" or "what place is there for me in his life in some other role?" or even the most basic, "is this really what he wants?" or more specifically, "would he choose this if he knew the price to be paid for me leaving him and disconnecting at the 5d level if there's no place for me in his 3d?" 

And maybe things would have been different if I had asked questions instead of drawing an if-then conclusion to guide my actions. But different doesn't always mean better -- and maybe the lessons we each had to learn about the nature of the bond and the strength of it would have remained undiscovered on those different paths. 

I would have had to be a goal oriented soul rather than an experience oriented soul to have asked the questions that could shift the goal instead of drawing a conclusion to help me shape my wandering path around the block. And then I'd be someone else and not me qua me. I don't set goals because I'm not motivated by seeking a telos, I seek experiences so I wander trusting in the Universe to get me to where I'm meant to be and I choose my path guided by passion and curiosity and wonder and my personal ethical code (including the stoic streak in me that tells me, "you don't have to like this but you must accept it no matter how deep it hurts.") 

And you have to remember, part of my ethics is that I hold free will to be sacrosanct because it's the only thing that gives any meaning to anything on this plane of existence. Only what is chosen and given freely creates meaning out of what is otherwise random chaos of intersecting causes and effects. Nothing coerced or forced or demanded has meaning to me -- only what is chosen and freely offered from the heart has meaning to me. 

And, at the time(s) that I have genuinely believed that there could be no place for me in his life as he has built it, it's always been because I can feel inside me his choices about who/what he wants to build his life around. My certainty that there could be no place for me in his life has always rested on the foundations of his certainty in who/what he DID choose to build his present/future life upon at that time. At every juncture that I have believed it and sought to let him go, it was a time when he genuinely felt in those times that he had met the love of his life (and there are as many loves and ways to love in this Universe as there are things we can love for their isness -- both of us are capable of deep real love outside the bond without it decreasing the value and isness and strength of the bond stretched between our souls, whatever it is and however we created it between us) or that he knew his vocation to mold his entire life around and it somehow excluded me. My certainty it was the right conclusion to a true premise was always predicated on his certainty at that time on choosing a life path with no place for me in it. Somehow, his uncertainty in himself and him questioning his choices always seemed to grow in him AFTER I drew that conclusion acted on it in ways that I did whatever I felt needful to let him go to build the life he chose while I went wandering off cutting contact points and stifling the bond.  But at the times that I made my choice and accepted "there's no place for me in his life as he is choosing to build it" he has always felt himself certain about having found the love of his life or the career path he must pursue no matter the cost.

And I wasn't going to argue with that certainty in him that echoed down the bond into me because free will is sacrosanct and who am I to tell him he's wrong in his choices and his own emotions and his own truths?  I never acted based on his words or anything anyone shared of his private life, I always acted on that conclusion from what came directly from him in the 5d down the bond. 

And then, over time, the premise and conclusion started to ossify in me like unexamined premises always seem to do. I started to see them as his Truth (with a capital T) rather than an if then dependent clause. I accepted it as his Truth so deeply that it took me many years and a lot of choices we have both made for me to even start asking, "if it's really his choice not to want any place for me in his life, then why is it every time I pull away from him to give him that choice he starts examining then rejecting the choice he had previously been so certain about?" 

I feel inside me that my healing from that bad premise has brought me to the point I am ready to ask, "is there any truth in the idea there is no place for me in his life?" and more importantly, "what do he and I need to do to create a place for me in his life so our life paths can twine together?" And I've been trying to do that, to focus on examining these questions and the choices they guide us to make. Only, sometimes when it seems like he's choosing things that confirm that old way of seeing the premise as his Truth, sometimes I fall back into the old rutted mental pathways of just blindly accepting I'm no part in what he wants to choose for his life. 

I'm trying not to just blindly believe that premise is his Truth. I am trying. It's just, I'm not very good at it whenever I get signals from him that seem to me he IS choosing to build his life in ways that have no place for me in it. 

I'm working on it. At least, I'm working on trying to sit in the headspace that questions IF that premise is his Truth and concludes that if it isn't we need to figure out what choices would carve out my place in his life for us to have a shared life path. 

And I don't know if that's enough... But it's where I'm at in my questioning of that idea and what I can try to do right now with how little there is available to me to try to work with at this point. 

Yes, it could all be sorted by me finding out from him what it is he DOES truly want built into his life moving forward and where he would choose my place to be in that.... But I don't have ways to know that now. And for a long time he didn't know that himself. As certain as he has seemed recently, he may not yet know those things. So since I can't have that sort of certainty to help me discard the idea completely, I'll stick to starting out by trying to approach the premise with questioning it instead of accepting it as his Truth.

And. He does get to questioning himself and anxiety ridden and broken up from his deep inmost self every time I try to quiet the bond and make me give him up while believing there's no place for me in his life.... And that's a recurring pattern in him that rings true every time. And I should consider the why, the consistency and the causality or synchronicity in that. 

This isn't really an answer or a guide, just some swirling thoughts and questions in me around my past acceptance of the idea, "there's no place for me in his life as he is choosing to build it" and the cause and effect ripples that created/creates when I act on it to try to let him go and leave him and deaden the bond between our souls. 

I still can't shake from my heart the feeling we've over complicated this and the swiftest way to cut through this Gordian Knot would be shared presence where we could hug and let our truths just shine between us at such close proximity there's no space between us for lies or fears or overthinking or wrong assumptions to grow. 

I don't know how we get from here to there, but I still have the unshakeable feeling that would simplify out nearly all the thorny unnecessary complications sprung up between us....

This evening I got a text from my optometrist office that my eye exam tomorrow was cancelled will need to reschedule because my optometrist is sick. It wasn't a need to -- I still have plenty of contacts. It's just that back in 24, we scheduled mine for a year out and it ended up beign whle I was going to be at my sister's so then we moved the appointment for after I was back home and that's how it ended up on Jan 5 -- but I can wait to go in for quite a lot of months before I need to have a renewed rx for ordering more contacts and my rx hasn't changed since I last got my current two pairs of glasses so it's not urgent, just a thing to get done eventually when convenient for me, lol. And that appointment was actually my only have to this week (other than fitting my hours in at work however I choose to do so.)  I mean, technically, I have plans for Crissy and Denis to come join me and my parents and Sarah and Karissa for cocktails at work on Thurs evening AND Sat night I have plans to watch the Packers game in the playoffs with my mum and Crissy is going to come join us for that one since it might be the closest the Packers get to Super Bowl this year. (I'm...concerned...about the Pack through this post season. The team is incredibly beat up with 14 players on injured reserve, including crucial players, and even more players injured but hoping to come back including two more in tonight's game -- the team is picked so thin by injuries that practice squad are moved up to main roster starting positions and new players have been signed to practice squad. So while we looked great earlier in the season, right now I'm concerned who will even be there to show up for playoff games.)  I'm actually really happy not to have much in my calendar this coming week other than social plans -- by the end of the month my calendar gets super busy (there's a primary election day in WI in Feb and so I have SVD the last week of Jan and I don't have the schedule for it yet but it means I need to be my happy patient well rested not hangry extroverted self since it is assisting those in care facilities to vote.) So introvert recharge time early in the month will be good! I actually don't have any shows in my calendar until Hamilton tickets on the 15 and Chris Thile tickets on the 17. 

Also, my animals will LOVE having cuddle time with me at home after me being gone for two weeks. They've both been so snuggly constantly with me since I got home. I pretty much always have them both following me around and/or needing to touch me to know I'm really there back home while I'm at home. 

 Also. Referring to the last post.

It's probably worth mentioning that while I was trying to words all that and feeling through it the other morning, every time i felt that feeling in me "my faith is getting too thin to keep believing in him and the bond as a reciprocal thing that can become manifest -- I'm going to fall through into where I can't breathe if I get trapped under the ice" my cat Griffin would come over with a chirpy meow, then jump up on my lap climb up to plop himself curled up on my chest like a purring weighted blanket right over my heart (he's a 15lb cat) and wouldn't stop purring or get up to leave to do anything else until I calmed down stopped doubting it like that. And he'd go from purring to suddenly ears back love bite chomp on my bare arm every time I started thinking about Martin wondering if I should be focusing my energy building there and putting ever more pressure on his teeth wrapped around my arm until I stopped thinking that way.  He never broke the skin or anything, he just made it very clear his opinions about me thinking/feeling that sort of way about looking elsewhere instead of focusing on the bond and how to manifest it into the real quotidian.  And whenever I started in on thinking there was no place for me in Eric's life as he's built it then my cat would go over to the piano start tapping on it to ask me to put his favorite music on for him and he would then start meowing until I finally stopped thinking that likely to be true.  One of the times, he even tried to drag my entire laptop bag over to the table where I set it up when I play music from my laptop and it made me laugh so hard watching this large gray cat trying to drag my backpack bigger than him around his spooky cat tree to take it across the living room -- and so I finally gave in to my cat's insistence and put the playlist of Eric's songs on and it was right after I did that I saw the insta post that reminded me it wasn't just a full moon but the full moon in Cancer which was part of my emotions feeling so much bigger/dominant that morning.  And he did all these things multiple times, but always when I was thinking/feeling/writing about those specific things. Which is very atypical. Though maybe not for me or my new cat familiar.

(Also. For the record. The idea there's no place for me in his life as he's choosing to build it actually first got into my head when he was dating the Scorpion chick and I was getting overlays of his strong emotional moments -- what happened in 2018 was the nail in the coffin made me see no way around accepting that, but my starting to face the idea start accepting it was while he was with his Scorpion chick girlfriend in NC and trying to decide whether or not to build his life with her because he loved her and so I was pulling away trying to shut down the bond find any way to put it to sleep so I stopped receiving the overlays of his strong emotional overlays. And in all fairness, I couldn't do anything on my own, I had to go to the Seelie Court in dream space at midsummer solstice revel and ask it as a boon from the Oak King who said he would put it to sleep once but if I ever chose to wake it again, he'd never be willing to put it to sleep ever again even if I asked. And it was after observing what the Oak King did to put it to sleep that I learned to quiet it and dull it and do my best starting in Oct 2018 to put the bond to sleep as I was able in the years between when I thought that was the best thing to do for him. And the only reason I stopped putting energy into that was how intensely he poured his energy into the bond to wake it up and claim it as his as much as mine made it clear that he didn't WANT our bond silted up asleep.... That was his choice and his insistence he wanted it wide open alive flowing with the full intensity of love and other emotions between our inner quiet spaces that made me realize that I wasn't being fair since it's OUR bond, not mine alone. The only way I'd cross that now I realize that it matters to his soul to have the bond flowing between us and that it's OURS not MINE would be if for any reason I started getting overlays again from him of his emotional moments with another woman that I didn't think i should be receiving from him. That's the only thing would make me consider trying to put the bond back to sleep or block it again -- and I'd feel okay with that because it could only happen based on his choices to look elsewhere and then I don't think he would have any rights to ask me to keep the bond awake and alive flowing the emotional waves between us. But that idea there's no place for me in his life IS an old idea I started accepting quite some years ago -- and if it's wrong headed, I would like to know that and start the work of digging it out from the root as a noxious pernicious weed of an untruth choking better things from growing within my head/heart spaces.)

So anyway. My cat, Griffin Owain McKittiggins, is quite definitely biased in Eric's favor and certain about what my heart actually wants me to choose even when I got full of doubting and fear and overthinking that maybe it's true there is no place for me in his life and I need to stop believing in the faith that the strong inner bond will manifest itself into the lived 3d this life.... He definitely has my cat on his side, lol. And this isn't even Spock the cat who loved piano music more than anything else, probably loved piano playing even more than he loved me which would be hard to believe with how bonded to me Spock was. Griffin's only been with me since late Oct, but he has strong opinions and biases in Eric's favor no matter what my heart/head starts reacting/overthinking. And that's noteworthy. Cats guard/protect/heal our spiritual health and homes, so it's worth my paying attention to my cat having such strong feelings that I should hold faith with the promise of the bond and the wanting to bring it into my lived life and he expresses such extreme reactions to me listening to the fears and doubts and overthinking that tell me I should believe it can't happen in this lifetime and i should let him go. Like my cat finds something spiritually insidious or sinister in the personal demons that feed that way of thinking and he has OPINIONS about feeding them instead of feeding the hope and faith and belief in the bond and that it still WILL come into 3d this lifetime. And I find that interesting because it's certainly not anything I've ever said to my cat to make him feel that way so strongly about it.

Also. Not sure if this helps provide any clarity at all.... But through all that questioning tangled mess and reactions moving me instead of choosing my own actions..... These are the missed astro poets horoscopes in their ongoing dance between Libra and Pisces. They're much less confused than I have been in the last week and a half or so.... In fact, they are VERY laser focused and clear on the theme and the promise of what IS there and what it can/will be as the future unfolds.

Astro Poets Horoscope: 

"Week of 12/14 in Libra: Forever love. An embrace. An embrace heard with words. And a light there. Over there it shines to you."

"Week of 12/14 in Pisces: Leftover in night. As a tale to tell. Do you say it? You make the words in green. You make them the words in blue and red."

"Week of 12/21 in Libra: You found a partner. And then you made a pink dream. Put the wishes in cups to drink. Go into the rooms. The green rooms are magical."

"Week of 12/21 in Pisces: Everything that was said. Is part of it. But do not swim there. Do not bathe there. Go there in candles."

"Week of 12/28 in Libra: You have felt it. And what you knew to be the one thing. Pink and green. There are candied kisses. There are dreams so felt."

"Week of 12/28 in Pisces: Friendship remains. The highest truth of it. Letting with red. A sweetest kiss. Do it again." 

"Week of 1/4 in Libra: The day in purple. The day blue with advancement. The day red with love. What is that you seek. It is forgiveness and truth." 

"Week of 1/4 in Pisces: Time extends as it should. Which is to say it shouldn’t. But nothing eternal fades. So it lets itself. So it means something."

So I had a wonderful time visiting my sister's family for the holidays! and I can't tell even a fraction of my favorite things about the time I shared with them. And not just because I'm terrible at picking favorites (I can't even pick a favorite color, just lots of shades I love differently for their different isness -- if I ever tell you that anything about you is my favorite, just know it's a big deal coming from me) but also because there were just too many delightful wonderful moments packed into those two weeks for me to even begin the storytelling at this point! Best I can do you is a vague, "Yeah, I had a great time!" with no further elaboration because you ain't got time or interest for all the words of all the little anecdotes of why I had such a great time, lol.  (I got there on the first night of Channukah, on the 14 and spent until the 29 with my family -- my flight was technically a red eye out at like 12:55am on the 30th but kiddos have bedtimes so we did dinner at Resonate in Bellevue and then they dropped me off at SeaTac right around normal bedtime before they drove home and I had like 5 hours or so to entertain myself. Somewhen before covid I started traveling with my travel kettle (a silicone collapsible kettle) and a real cup I like drinking out of (the first time this was an accident because my sister gifted me a ceramic mug so I had it with me and then I realized how much nicer it is to drink out of a real mug not a disposable one while traveling) in my carry-on when I fly as well as always having tea in my purse/carry-on just a year or so after I bought my collapsible travel kettle to start bringing it for roadtrips (because in the states most hotels don't have kettles and the coffee makers make REALLY gross coffee flavored tea no matter how many times you try to run them with just water.) It's absolutely a game changer in my opinion to have my own kettle, especially for later night or early morning flights when most of the stores/cafes are closed, because I can refill my water bottle easily and finding an outlet isn't THAT hard these days especially if you have the time to find a gate not in use in the near future, and then I can just brew myself a nice hot cuppa tea and gift myself a little bit of cozy hygge zen to ground and center me in the midst of being surrounded by frenetic chaotic stressed humans.  It's a small thing, but it absolutely shifts my ability to let the stress of the other humans wash around me but not through me so I can stay my happy cheerful self filling the air around me with my uplifted tranquil powerful energy not get all wound up by the external stressors of others. You can get a travel kettle for like $15-50 depending on how much you want to spend and they're really worth it if you find hot tea to be a calming grounding experience in your life. (though it looks like ones of the design I bought and like best (I spent a LOT of time going through the styles before buying) are like $70-150 now or used they're still showing up as like $50...)

It was really great to have extended time with my sister's family -- on the global scale Washington isn't THAT far away from Wisconsin, but it's still not a daytrip of a drive (not even by Midwest standards, lol) and so they're always a flight away (or like 40 hours of driving which is a multi day drive when driving it by yourself like the last time I did the drive between their home and my own.) I will see them next in August for sure (even if their trip DOES overlap with my Irish season and so choices will have to be made between actual blood family and my Celtic chosen family. But that's a later in the year me problem -- almost nobody is even announced yet for who will even be stateside for Milwaukee this year and given the work visas getting pricier and lengthier wait times and just general difficulties even for white musicians from Ireland/UK/Canada to come to the US be able to commit to festivals so they can get the visas which they can't get until they have the shows/fests booked....) But it was nice to have a solid 15 days staying with them (which my sister told me was still too short; which she tells me every visit no matter how long I stay  Apparently, her feelings on it are she wants me to stay until she's so sick of me she can't miss me -- which my brother-in-law told her, "That only works with people you actually get tired of. Dani is really hard to get tired of having around and very easy to miss in her absence." and my sister replied to him, "Yes. that's my point. That's why she just should never leave us. She should just move in. Let's build her a guest house in the backyard to live in with all her books and dog."  It was very interesting being there because they not only have Amazon Prime order everything delivered but they're now on Vine which is where you can order curated things for free (you just pay the estimated taxes) and then you write reviews of them and they're at the tier they can get 8 things a day so they do a LOT of online shopping/browsing get a LOT of packages every day. It has made their holidays even more materialistic  overwhelming amount of presents --it takes a full day to get through all the stockings and the gifts I can pack then nearly a week to get through all the larger "under the tree" type presents.... It's a LOT and my sister likes to shop and troll and she is a Virgo sun with a Pisces moon and rising -- so she's VERY detail oriented good at finding things people will like and organized about making it happen accumulating things over a long time -- and Vine just increased opportunities  for her to get things that people will enjoy and/or laugh at.  It does make sense for a large family, especially with three kids constantly growing but it's still a lot more constantly acquiring new things delivered to their door than the way I live my life.  They more than out balance me as close to off the grid without living in a cabin in the woods with my low carbon footprint as I am (no internet at home, don't buy into any streaming services, buy as much of my food as possible that I don't grow/forage myself or family/friends grow/forage at local farmer's markets/cheesemongers and csa and pick your own farms, drive a Prius I bought used with low mileage but is from a decade ago, refuse to use AI find it annoying af having it intrude on my life before we get into the environmental waste issues of it, I use/reuse everything until it literally falls apart can't be repaired any longer, I don't buy many things except books and music and crystals and tea and art/art supplies and wines/whiskeys and occasionally swords/knives and tarot/oracle decks.)  Just very different ways to navigate the materialism of the modern world.

I'm not good at picking favorites and I love all my niblings differently but same intensity although I probably feel closest to Monroe right now, but part of that is her age and also our general personalities having similar interests. (Libras and Leos get along incredibly well as long as they respect each others boundaries/feelings, both of them are artistic want other people to be their happiest shiniest self with minimal interpersonal friction and they both genuinely have a magpie like delight in self expression via external aesthetics. They're generally considered two of the most compatible besties signs and it's usually a misunderstanding/miscommunication that causes friction/separation not malice or actual dislike.  Leos who don't respect a Libra's sense of justice/fairness as being a genuine feeling will run into difficulties and Libras who don't respect the intensity of Leo's wounded egos as a genuine feeling get into difficulties.  But usually a genuine apology will fix just about anything between a Libra and a Leo as long as it's clear the apology (and changed behaviors) come from truth in the heart not just lip service.)  Ellie the youngest is a toddler and there are some reasons that she is much more introverted does her own thing lives in her own world is generally very happy living her best life but that's not my story to tell. Jack (the oldest) is most intensely interested in Pokemon and Rubik's Cubes/clock puzzles and building Legos and I just really can't get into the first two as intensely as he does and he likes to do the entire build himself so I just can hang out with him while he does the build  -- he and I tend to bond over reading quietly in the same space and sports (playing and watching/discussing and making up random games) most specifically soccer and American football and playing HORSE but not actual basketball, lol. He's very intense and passionate and driven (he's an October Scorpio) about everything he's interested in but they're very niche things and there aren't that many jock nerds out there to bridge his disparate interests.  Monroe is 6 and she's very generous hearted girly creative with strong spiritual gifts so we make pink tea together and can do lots of arts and crafts together and paint our nails put on music to sing along to while they dry. Jack and Mo did both use some of their screen time (they both get tablet screen time during the others soccer/gymnastics classes, they get to have a certain amount of screen time after school while their parents are working though Weds (their short day) is educational screen time only and Fridays they can play Minecraft and then they have a punch card system in half hour increments for any further screen time) to watch 5 episodes of Avatar the Last Airbender with me (they're both OBSESSED with it and were very excited when I told them I'd never watched it but everyone who knows me well tells me I will love it even though I'm not super into anime) and then Mo was fixated on wanting to watch K-Pop Demon Hunters with me because she loves it so much and I hadn't watched it yet and she whispered to me when her parents weren't listening, "And Dani. I know you will love it. Because they do what you do. With the light lines and protecting and fighting demons and ghosts. But they sing to make it real while they do it." She and I watched it together on the 28 (and Jack got to play games on his tablet while we watched it for equal screen time and neither of them had to use punches on it.) 

I did have an unexpected wave of sorrow crash into me from my inner space make me nearly cry while we were sitting there started watching K Pop Demon Hunters on Sun morning. I'm so busy when I'm out there that I don't have much time to myself or to listen to my own inner quiet while I'm out there. So why do I think that sadness might have been? Well. It didn't feel like it was mine, but it felt "almost mine" the way that everything down the bond echoes so loudly and deep resonance in my inner quiet spaces. And if that's true, it's probably my fault -- or at least partially my fault. You may have noticed that i set this back to private to authors (or maybe you didn't -- one should never assume ones own importance in the eyes of others) but whether you noticed it or not, it's a thing I did on Dec 23, the morning before Christmas Eve. 

 The same old reason, I unfollowed him on insta and set this to private because once again he shared a story I couldn't see. I don't even know what the content was he shared. (That's the daftest part: it doesn't matter the content or how I'd feel about the content he shares when this happens -- it's about how I feel when I see the message "this content is unavailable for you" and the spiral of realizing he doesn't care when he reminds me there's no welcome and no place for me in the most important parts of his life because of the bullying via ostracism choices made in 2018 that have never been acknowledged or healed or even discussed.) And the thing is, for most of my visit I would never even have seen it, never have known he shared it because I was hardly on my phone or checking socials during my visit. That morning I was standing by the kitchen counter steeping tea waiting on my timer for when to pull the teabag, and I had left my books downstairs and everyone else was getting ready for the morning and Chicken (their cat) wasn't circling my ankles asking me to play so I briefly hopped on socials to see what I might have missed recently. That's the when and how of me even seeing it. 

And my immediate reaction was, "No! I have made it clear as I can that I am not going to stay stuck in these patterns. I am not allowing this to affect my joy in my life as I am living these moments. If this "you can't sit with us" reminder is what you're offering, then I don't want your profile in my feed. If that's all you have to offer me, then I release you to whatever you are choosing to build your life around and the happiness you can find within those structures." And then I unfollowed him. And I set this whole thing to private immediately after unfollowing him because....because I refused to put any energy or attention into explaining what had shifted things inside me but didn't want this publicly to have so recently been on one course that now felt a lie.... I didn't want my silence to create a false sense that things were the same as when I'd last been writing here. I thought it better to take it all away, into a more complete silence until I was home again and ready to put energy into writing about the most recent tectonic shift. 

Only. Then. Since the 23, everything has been a reminder making me think of him. My novels I packed was reading were a retelling of East of the Sun West of the Moon fairytale about a prince turned polar bear to be rescued by the maiden who will marry him regardless the enchantments/glamours that try to get between them. And then one of my favorite gifts from my sister are a set of ceramic coasters with mosaic/stained glass style polar bear paintings on them. And then last night I was catching up on emails saw that the Dec Behind the Door was made public so I watched it. And even like, my survey about my flights that came in, the from line is"Erik at Delta" with the subject line, "Daniella, help us Keep Climbing" and I was genuinely confounded by it when I saw it come in my inbox on New Years Day -- because it's genuinely the sort of synchronicity that beggars the limits of (im)probability because seriously wtf are the chances of that?!?! Because the books were my subconscious before I left home and the coasters were because my sister knows my love of polar bears and the choice to make that public happened before he shared the story I couldn't see so I spooked decided to let him go (even if I didn't open the email to know that until weeks later) -- but find me the logic and the odds that the email from the airline asking me to do a survey about my flight experience being addressed to me from "Erik at Delta" because that can't be rationally logically explained and the statistics of that chance are so improbable but that's what I found in my inbox... And synchronicity reminder nudges from the Universe just don't happen like that scripted into everyday quotidian normal lives of normal people... They just don't. But they constantly happen to me whenever I decide it would be best for me to let him go. And who knows what the Universe will do next to keep reminding me of him and the bond if I try to stay hard hearted ignore this blatant a synchronicity making me think on him want to lean into the temptation of the eternality of the bond and the warmth of love in its isness.

 It makes me second guess that knee jerk reactionary of "No! This petty dynamic will not be allowed to affect any moment of my family time!  I don't want to fall back into this toxic pattern with him again. Offer me something better or I'm out, HAGL" response I had on Dec 23. Because why should there be so many things reminding me of him trying to lead me back soften me back toward remembering the bond and the love woven through it and the good that's possible letting him in?

The thing is, now I've got myself sorted after the 28 hours of not sleeping followed by a migraine followed by New Years plans (with family/friends) I FINALLY have had some time for catching up on work and things I fell behind on and reflection.  And. Here's the thing. It's very clear within me and I think I made it very clear across the last year that I am tired and done with repeating the patterns we've all got stuck in following the girls choices in 2018. And I am. I'm so done with it that I wonder if I'm repeating old reactionary patterns throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Because to be done with something refuse to keep repeating it, there's only two ways I know of to do that. 1) You do the hard but important work to heal what broke and decide from the healed perspective if you want to continue the relationships or gently let them go as no longer aligned but you make the choice from a healed place 2) You chuck it all in the fuck it bucket and walk away because you're so done with this shit that you're just going to leave it unhealed because you ain't got the time or emotional capacity to invest anything more in it. Now obviously the first is the BETTER way, but if you can't get to that point or find the cooperation from the rest involved in the breaking and/or who choose to be involved in the healing, sometimes the second is all you have available at the time. And the place I've been sitting since the day before Christmas Eve is to throw up my hands say there's nothing but the second option open to me if I want to stop repeating the old patterns. but the thing is, me reacting that way HAS been part of the cycles we got stuck in, the push me pull me of it. So now that I'm no longer in that immediate emotional reactionary "Nope. Not today Satan. Not having this petty girl bullying in my life. You have no right to steal any damn moment of my happiness in my lived life." I felt on the 23, I can't make myself believe that it's the only option, or even the right option, or the option anyone ACTUALLY desires... I can't help thinking it was just old patterns not thinking not realizing he was repeating them and me reacting the same way to the same impetus... And maybe that's just what i WANT to believe.... But it feels more true than believing he did it intentionally or realizing the consequences of my reactions to it -- that he didn't even think about my reaction until too late I can believe, but I find it hard to believe he thought about it and realized and did it anyway because he didn't care or he actively chose to want to take part in the "you can't sit with us" ridiculous bullying via ostracism dynamics that all things related to the Delta Rae insta account have been since Oct 2018. I don't believe so little of him to think it anything but an act of accidental carelessness rather than an act of intentional cruelty. And yet....

And yet no amount of beliefs gets you to truth, to knowing. Things are called faith because you can't know. But the things that lie between two souls  can only become a relationship when they are matters of truth not of faith -- so long as they are built on faith they are just fantasies. And the faith wears thin with fantasies. The longer time passes, the more evidence you accumulate against it, the paucity of supporting evidence -- all these undermine melt away faith built on fantasies not reality until you have nothing to stand on but the thin ice you can see the sharks circling beneath your feet and the cracks spidering out as you're soon to fall into the cold shocks of reality as it is once that thinning faith disappears, the cold water that will steal your breath and trap you the wrong side of all the icy film of beliefs til it kills you.... That's what it feels like trying to hold onto believing in a faith that exists only as fantasies not reality the more time and circumstances are undercutting that faith thinner and thinner beneath your feet. 

That's what it feels like right now to me. And sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be smarter of me to just get off the damn thin ice that I don't always believe can continue to hold me up and instead skate off to somewhere more stable where the ice and the reality are solid enough the same thing to hold me up where I can breathe and dream and believe in the beautiful improbable things that give sparkle to the living of a life. 

The truth is I don't know what he wants. I don't know if he knows what he wants. And I have nothing but my own beliefs in the mirroring patterns and synchronicities to think that I'm any part of what he wants even if he's figuring that out for himself. I only have my beliefs and my faith in those beliefs is thinning the more time passes without anything in reality to support my belief and one of these days I fear I'll fall into the cold drowning embrace of reality as it is and not find my way back to the right side of the believing -- and if that's all that is on offer by trying to hold faith in the bond and the promise of it, then I'm a fool to stay on the thin ice instead of heading off to a faith more solid built into reality to keep me the right side of believing/dreaming. 

It just sometimes seems such an exercise in folly to hold faith in believing a dream that has never shown itself becoming real.....  And things like this, even if I'm right that they truly are an act of carelessness not an act of cruelty, they still make the ice feel even thinner and the cracks more visible to me and the risk of me falling through to the wrong side of believing/dreaming, the side where cold hard reality drowns you. They just do. Every time thinner and thinner ice that i don't think will hold me up on the side of where the soul can breathe. My soul is not a seal or a whale or a dolphin or a fish -- I can't survive for long on the wrong side of the ice, if I fall through it I'll only last as long as I can hold my breath and hope I can find somewhere else to pull myself back to the right side of the believing and the dreaming.... I'm not very good at swimming by the rules of this modern reality without the dreaming and carving out my own little bubble of whimsical magical living by my own beliefs on the other side of that ice -- on the side of the ice where the soul can breathe and dance and there's always the possibility of a dream that lifts you up soaring so you can fly once you learn to grow wings.... 

I don't know if I'm explaining it rightly... I'm using the language of poets and dreams to try to concretize explain the way it feels inside me and why every time I react by fleeing fast as I can far from him as the bond allows, like a startled doe trying to get to safety, whenever he does even a little action (even when his intentions were good) that makes him take active part in the "you can't sit with us" bullying via ostracism that exists with anything from the band's account since Oct 2018....  But it's the only words I have right now to try to explain the feel of it, the lyrical imagery is all I have to communicate the feeling. I'm sorry if it doesn't help make sense of it....it's just all I can offer to explain the way it feels to me these recent years. 

 I don't have better ways to explain the way it feels inside me for how tenuous thin actions like this render my belief in the bond and the love between our souls ever becoming manifest into reality.... It's just so hard for me to see a way for it to become true not just a matter of faith.... And it gets harder and harder the more time passes and the more he does anything that undercuts it with doubts.... And then the only thing that makes any sort of sense is to accept what I've been shown at face value and to run off to find something/someone anywhere else more solidly sitting on a faith rooted into reality where I can dance on the side of dreaming where the soul can breathe without falling through drowning in the coldness on the wrong side of believing, stay out of the side where reality kills someone like me if I stay there too long. 

And I just don't have any way to even know the truth of even something that small was an act of carelessness or an act of intentional cruelty in him. All I have is just the thinning faith that I don't believe it's in his nature that he would be intentionally cruel toward me... 

That's how much of a mess the choices of 2018 made of the paths to make real manifest the promise of the bond into real life quotidian... That's how fragile has become my belief that he could want it as intensely and deeply as I do....  And I hate that that's now any part of my truth how easily it could all be shattered no matter how much I desire it! But hating has as little effect on truth as believing...

And it's why every little thing will startle me off like the feral beast my heart has become since the choices made in 2018 have taught me to accept the idea that there's no place for me in his life so I'd best get used to what I find out in the wilderness to build my own life around.... Because what else is a soul and a heart to do other than turn untamed wild if you teach it there's no place that welcomes you in the life of the person who you would choose your life path with if you could? What did you think has been going on since Oct 2018? What did you think I was talking about when I said I've spent all these years fighting against accepting all the effects of that one choice point caused but I know I'm losing that fight trying to fight it all by myself?! 

 And.

 Maybe.

Maybe the truth of it is (and always has been) that I'm fighting it by myself because I'm the only person it's ever mattered to... 

And. 

Maybe. 

Maybe time is running fast into the bottom half of the hourglass of this life span and it's time I grew up enough to stop fighting, stop holding onto that last thin ice of my faith in what I always believed the bond promised and I should just give up on that dreaming for this life and wander off find a dream that's also dreaming of me that I can make real for the remainder of this life. 

Maybe I should turn my face away from the bond and accept it as only a fantasy for this life and put my full energy into knowing I will see Martin again in February and focus on something real there to build on if he's still interested. 

And maybe that's the worst choice I could possibly make and everything is closer to coming real than I can see from here but we're so close if I can just hold faith in him a little while longer....

And I just don't know. I don't. I can't see which of those last two maybes is true and which false. All I know is if I fall through the ice and get stuck too long on the wrong side of the dreaming into the reality so cold I'll drown in it.  Because I'm not a fish, I need to stay on the side of the dreaming where there's dancing and the hope of someday growing wings to fly.

I'm sorry I can't make more sense than that of things right now. That's the tangle of emotions I have inside me this recent while in the best I can words it at this time....

P. S. I rather forgot that it was the Cancer full moon this morning. Water signs always make my emotions bigger but the tides of Cancer moons always feel like they pull me to some safe haven, somewhere that can be home even if only for the time it's safe.... Anyway, this was the post that resonated and reminded me which sign is always the Wolf Moon. 

I don't know that it helps. Just that it's a part of what's woven into my truths and thoughts/feelings this morning -- like the unexpected not in the prediction models extra quarter inch of snow that started just after 8am, lol