Now I didn't say I WANT that to be the way it goes, that after the three shows in November I decide I'm done with Delta Rae and all its members are dead to me -- I just said the odds are stacking up that way.
I'd PREFER a path where I can have what I fucking want, which is all I've ever actually wanted. A path where this mess is dealt with and cleaned up and solutions are found to keep it from happening again. That's what I'd RATHER! But it's not the path we're headed on and I'm going to be realistic rather than optimistic without seeing any real change. Especially in light of Eric's choices HE made back in late August and early September.
*shrugs* My reasons I believe the odds are that I'll unfollow the band and the members of it after the November shows and dead them?
1) I'm still blocked on the official band instagram account. I can't care about their music or wish them any success as long as that's the way it is -- and that IS a constant reactionarg state of mind/heart with me and it reflects backwards keeps me from even being able to listen to or share or enjoy their songs that I spent NEARLY A DECADE loving with my entire heart, listening to constantly, attending over 30 shows, and converting scores of people into new fans of the band over those years... As for when I was blocked. There was never any warning, no dm asking me to keep public posts positive, no response to the comment itself -- nothing but blocking me out of the blue for being honest that the country music caused me pain due to my synesthesia (which the girls at least had known about from the very start of the "we're country now" decision, whether or not they shared that information with any of the guys is unknown to me, but both of them knew) and would keep me from attending future shows. That is what happened, plain and simple -- and no amount of spinning it differently to yourself so as not to admit you were wrong or rationalizing what was done will EVER change those facts of what happened. And that behavior is not EVER acceptable to do from a PR management "you are your product" perspective AND basic "don't be an asshole shit human" perspective. It's simply NEVER acceptable. The band will be dead to me if we pass a YEAR of this bullshit, especially now they no longer have the easy out excuse of their management which I gave them to take if they wanted when i reminded them this is still an issue and STILL they did nothing to fix this. If that's the way you treat ANY fan, let alone one of your longterm diehard fans, then fuck you -- I do not support you as a band and WILL NOT support your music. This is NOT a small fuckup. Even before it was left to fester this long and become an issue of morals and principle. It was never an acceptable way you treat ANY fan. EVER.
2) Nobody has EVER addressed, acknowledged, or even RESPONDED to me from the band about it despite various messages for OVER A YEAR both publicly and privately on multiple platforms to the official band account AND personal accounts. Nobody even had the decency to RESPOND about it. They just all participated in the gaslighting of it pretending it isn't real and isn't happening and I'm not blocked when I am. And that is a reflection on the character of ALL of them and EVERYONE who currently represents them or has over the last YEAR. This is a statement about who they are, what they stand for, their complete lack of compassion/empathy, and what they consider acceptable ways to treat another human being.... And at this point, it IS an indictment on the characters of ALL of them that NOBODY stepped up and said or did ANYTHING about it. EVER. AT ANY POINT. Including when i was publicly attacked by other fans (on the band's facebook and twitter) back in August with other fans rabidly victim blaming me that I must have done something wrong because nobody ever involved with the band would ever do anything like that.
3) I will never compromise on an issue of ethics. EVER. And you will NEVER get a pass from me if you do anything intentionally cruel and hurtful to another living being. And I will NEVER give you a pass for not feeling and SHOWING remorse and ATTEMPTING to make amends once it has been brought to your attention that your actions DID cause hurt and were cruel to another living being. We can discuss how not to have a fight over it, but on any question of "was this right?" I will NEVER bend or compromise or stop calling out bullying in all its forms for what it is. Ever. I never have before in any life and I don't intend to start now.
4) I have no trust, whatsoever, for Britt or Liz. (And also I have no trust for Eric any longer. I expect to be hurt by him every time I see anything from him since his behavior and choices in August -- particularly since I DID tag him directly about the issue the very first it was announced HE would be going live on the band's instagram account to which he also remained complicit in his silence (while responding to asinine jokes about potatoes to other diehards -- which is just a stupid typo, none of the jokes/obsession is even entertaining, and is going to get an actual potato chucked at the band onstage if they keep encouraging it) as well as him following Britt's lead on the ostracism and bullying via the band's instagram account. At this point whenever I see anything from him or involving him, instantaneously my hackles go up and I brace myself EXPECTING to be smacked and hurt by him because I let him in enough that he CAN hurt me and he's shown me that he will do so without any hesitation or remorse ever since his choices in late August and early September. And that's something only he can address and even begin to fix.... ) I EXPECT to be hurt by them every time I see anything posted anywhere from them at this point. I expect to be hurt by what I see, and I expect to be hurt by whatever they post on the band account I can't see. ANYTHING they post, I flinch like I expect to be smacked and steel myself for whatever it is. THEY taught me that. THEY are the ones who have to fix that if they want anything but wary distance from me and in my eyes. I will be polite, but I will not trust them on the terms of what they have offered me over the last two years. And while I forgive, I do not lie to myself or anyone else and I will not rewrite history in the name of forgiveness or making a false peace. You make peace with me on the grounds of acknowledging the past mistakes, never by sweeping them under the rug trying to pretend they never happened.... So I will forgive, for my sake, but I will not forget and if you never apologize or try to make right what you did wrong or show any remorse or try to grow to be a better person, I cannot and will not trust you to be anything other than what my experiences have shown you to be. No amount of forgiveness will EVER repair broken trust. not with me, not with anyone else. Not even with an animal if you smack it.
These are the things that have been broken that I NEED addressed and fixed if you want me to stay.... And those are the reasons that at this point I believe the odds are about 89% I will walk away and let ALL of them go and never think of them or their music again after the November shows. And it doesn't MATTER what you do to try to remind me of what I love(d) or try to win me over or impress me -- if you don't address and fix these 4 fundamental issues, then ANY and EVERY thing you do to try to make me love you is trying to build a house on a sand dune with no foundation or supports. It can't hold anything together to try to do that, it'll just make the inevitable collapse more tragic than it already is..... You have no solid ground without working on these 4 issues -- so none of anything else you do will hold together. It will only make me feel more intensely the sorrow of watching it all collapse when by all logic and laws of attraction it should have stood for ages and lifetimes and eons....
Is it fixable? Yes.
Is it easy to fix? No.
Does it require honesty and acknowledging mistakes that were made? Yes.
Is it something i can do any damn thing to fix at this point we've now reached? No.
Will I walk away from the entire situation if it's left this toxic and nothing is done about it? Yes.
Will I be able to listen to ANY of their music (already written or not yet written) if this isn't cleansed and healed? No. Never again.
And that's where it's at. And why I say I expect that I will wash my hands of them, unfollow them everywhere, take down their signed posters to roll them up and hide them at the back of a closet, and cease to allow me to ever think about them or support them. because that's what WILL happen without anything being done to address those 4 foundational issues that have destroyed absolutely everything and without fixing them NOTHING can be built and NOTHING they do (collectively or individually) can earn back any admiration or love or affection from me. Nothing gets better without fixing those 4 problems. And there will be no improvement, no success at ANYTHING you do to try to remind me of how much more we have in common than difference and why we OUGHT to be together and make me fall in love again with all that is lovable in you. Not until you fix these 4 things that they managed to destroy and poison.
And that is why, I say this is all a fucking mess and needs to be cleaned up, one way or another. And it's also why at this time, I expect that I shall be leaving and have nothing more to do with Delta Rae or any member of the band after the 3 shows in November. Shows that I bought tickets for in June KNOWING from precogs that if I didn't do it then (when they first went on sale while I was still hopeful that once independent they'd go back to having an ethical backbone and fix this bullshit mess) that the precogs told me despite all my best hopes they'd somehow manage to do something to upset me so I wouldn't want to go to the shows and if I didn't already have tickets I'd walk away forever not give them ANY chance to make anything right. I bought those tickets when they went on sale KNOWING with complete certainty that I'd be in this turmoil and this upset by September/October. And I bought them anyway. In full knowledge of reaching this point somehow. That was the optimist in me, believing that somehow if I just held on long enough it'd come out right. But now we're getting so close to reaping the seeds of what they have sown and have done nothing to heal, that I'm no longer an optimist on this. I'm forced to be a realist.
[Post Title: Lyrics to the Fallout Boy song "Sugar We're Goin' Down" which has been stuck in my head 75% of the time over the last 2 weeks except a few notable earworms or when tehre's other music playing to drown out this song on repeat in my head. Luckily, I love me some Fallout Boy -- and a lot of other emo rock -- it's a well known musical love of mine throughout my life and I've attended Warped Tour many many times in my past, practically every year throughout the aughts, lol.]
Saturday, October 12, 2019
Am I more than you bargained for yet? I've been dying to tell you anything, you want to hear. Cause that's just who I am this week. Lie in the grass, next to the mausoleum. I'm just a notch in your bedpost, But you're just a line in a song. A notch in your bedpost, But you're just a line in a song. Drop a heart, break a name. We're always sleeping in, sleeping for the wrong team. We're going down, down in an earlier round -- And Sugar, we're going down swinging. I'll be your number one with a bullet. A loaded God complex, cock it and pull it.
Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone. I hear you call my name, And it feels like home. When you call my name, it's like a little prayer, I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there. In the midnight hour, I can feel your power. Just like a prayer you know, I'll take you there. I hear your voice, it's like an angel sighing. I have no choice, I hear your voice. Feels like flying. I close my eyes, Oh God I think I'm falling, Out of the sky, I close my eyes. Heaven help me.
Morning Clarification Post:
I'm not saying that I won't:
1) encourage or say yes to Dave, not even tomorrow
2) decide the situation with Eric (and his sister, since she is who/what made it this toxic) is too much of my energy going into it and not enough in return so it's become toxic to us both and my life in this lifetime would be better without it.
There is still better odds I decide I'm done with them, make my inner peace with that, and walk away. The odds are still that I make that choice following the 3 Delta Rae shows in November and then I see it through before the year is out.
What I'm promising is that I won't leave in anger, in a fit of pique. I won't throw in the towel as punishment or emotional leverage. When I go, it'll be sorrowfully but with clear-headed certainty that it is the healthiest thing for everyone under the circumstances and given the choices that have been made and are being made at the time. That is all I'm promising, that I'll not leave in a destructive flash of losing my temper... And that's all I'm promising at this time.... I'm not promising I won't go.... Just that if/when I do, it won't be done in anger.
Please understand it remains a very real possibility. That's one of many sharp-edged truths you do need to take into account and handle with care: over the last two years and especially over the last year choices made in the name of the entire band have nearly pushed me to that point I decide leaving and cutting ties will be best and healthiest for everyone at this time, given the options I see.....
[Post Title: lyrics to the Madonna song, Like A Prayer.]
I'm not saying that I won't:
1) encourage or say yes to Dave, not even tomorrow
2) decide the situation with Eric (and his sister, since she is who/what made it this toxic) is too much of my energy going into it and not enough in return so it's become toxic to us both and my life in this lifetime would be better without it.
There is still better odds I decide I'm done with them, make my inner peace with that, and walk away. The odds are still that I make that choice following the 3 Delta Rae shows in November and then I see it through before the year is out.
What I'm promising is that I won't leave in anger, in a fit of pique. I won't throw in the towel as punishment or emotional leverage. When I go, it'll be sorrowfully but with clear-headed certainty that it is the healthiest thing for everyone under the circumstances and given the choices that have been made and are being made at the time. That is all I'm promising, that I'll not leave in a destructive flash of losing my temper... And that's all I'm promising at this time.... I'm not promising I won't go.... Just that if/when I do, it won't be done in anger.
Please understand it remains a very real possibility. That's one of many sharp-edged truths you do need to take into account and handle with care: over the last two years and especially over the last year choices made in the name of the entire band have nearly pushed me to that point I decide leaving and cutting ties will be best and healthiest for everyone at this time, given the options I see.....
[Post Title: lyrics to the Madonna song, Like A Prayer.]
I'm not going to do anything stupid. Not right now. Things ARE fucked up, and ain't shit been done to fix it -- but I'm no longer in such a temper as to do anything permanent and stupid. Stupid is what I do when my temper flares up, burning everything to the ground saying, "Fuck it I'm done" is what I do while my temper burns out of control, but it's not what I do once it burns itself out. I'll admit I never quite know what I'll destroy with my words and "fuck it, let's just destroy it all if we can't fix it" mentality that I get when I'm angry -- and most of the time I lose my temper, I end up rather broken afterwards aghast at what the hell I just did and what I may have destroyed beyond any healing or fixing....
And the worst of it... Whether you get my anger that burns hot like a forest fire or your get my cold righteous wrath over a matter of ethics and justice , the way I handle my temper is I speak truths. But I speak horrible truths. I wield truths like swords, the ones I always know and always carry but that I know that people aren't able to face.... truths that they aren't ready yet or strong enough yet to face and accept, that I've KNOWN they aren't ready to hear or face because to hear them without healing/building them to be better will only destroy them. And when I'm angry, those are the truths I speak. But also, it's far more devastating in person than in written form because if you've ever seen me angry in person, I don't speak these truths in an angry tone of voice -- I speak them completely coldly, matter-of-factly, factually as if they are truths that everyone knows and nobody has ever told you but EVERYBODY knows it except you - same as if I were explaining photosynthesis or why dogs pant instead of sweat when they overheat.... It's far more devastating in person. And then on top of that, when I lose control of my temper, there's always a strong energy release that SCARES people, terrifies some -- especially since I do go all Carrie on shit when I lose my temper or even just get minor annoyed. I fry electronics, destroy all bluetooth/wifi/cell signal like I'm creating a faraday cage around me, zap lighbullbs and overload circuits....I've only shattered glass when angry once -- it's mostly anything electronic, anything that is energy based, that I fry when I lose my temper.
Which is why this life I work sooooo fucking hard to control it.... Because me losing my temper is a bit of a force of nature and it's devastating and scary. And most people don't deserve it. And it's also why I've trained myself when I feel my anger building to a point I know I'm about to speak truths edged like knives, not caring what damage they do while I'm angry, I'll often choose to run away and leave the situation to NOT put anyone through that. To let me cool down and to come back and let us work to solve it instead of me spewing who knows what sharp-edged truths at them and pummeling them with the raw force of my chi while the lights flicker and all the phones/laptops/TVs suddenly fail with error codes that don't exist and reset themselves. Don't worry, I don't let me anywhere near any expensive electronics even when annoyed, or hangry. I can also, even when in a cheerful mood but just too much spirit energy flowing through me, play with distortion effects on speakers using just my hands from like 5-10 ft away. And when I'm irked, it happens in waves without my meaning to. Which is, again, why I work really hard this life on controlling my temper. I don't always succeed, but I DO work at it, and I'm trying really hard! Turns out though, that anyone with power enough to force dark ghosts to the light and to fight evil dark spirits that never did incarnate (what I do in my free time, ad hoc) is a helluva lot too much on modern electronics when she loses her temper, lol.
But. I do have the flight response when angry and it started as a means to control myself so I won't destroy everything while my temper is burning hot. But I reckon that doesn't work so well when the way you could truly destroy everything is if you DO run off and abandon it and say, 'Fuck it I'm done with this shit!"
But staying means speaking even harder to bear truths, ones with even sharper edges, and I dunno that that's something anyone involved can handle in this situation -- especially given the intensity of defensiveness and bullying I experienced from the girls in response to the very straight forward truth that offkey vocals, especially country twangs, cause me physical pain......That's a fairly dull edged truth and one that is obvious to anyone who's even the slightest bit observant -- hell I've had other people in a crowd (at multiple concerts, restaurants, doctors offices etc) ask me if I'm okay when a country song has come on and they see me flinch and wince at it. It's obvious enough it causes me pain that an observant person, not even an empath, can tell. Empaths feel my pain like THEY'RE being hit with a whip because of how loud and strong my energy is -- so it means that in crowded places with any percentage of empaths there, I not only feel the nerve pain, but then I have to make my shielding as powerful as possible to keep all that pain inside me bubbled off to not reach other people and hurt them -- and that is energetically physically exhausting at the level I have to do it just to make ti through one song without my pain causing pain to other empath but instead only being visible to anyone observant enough to see me flinch or wince at it...... But it's something complete strangers see, any/every time I'm exposed to offkey vocalists, so I really don't consider it a hard-edged truth at all that off-key and twangy vocals cause me physical pain and they WILL stop me from going to shows...and yet, that's how ttey responded to it and the girls made such a fucking mess of various forms of defensiveness and bullying in response to that dull edged obvious truth. I can't imagine what they'd do if forced to confront the sharp-edged truths they refuse to face.......
I said some much more hard-edged truths in the recent posts though. Not to them, but here. From while I was angry. I didn't realize I could still be so angered about it.... It was really the precogs set off my anger. because I didn't think it fair that I should have to fucking bear those as well, that I be shown it and expected to care enough to say/do things to change their fate lines, after everything else I've been asked to carry in this very one-sided uneven and unfair relationship thus far.....
All that said though, the point of my flight response when angry is to NOT destroy everything with the truths I say and the power behind them when I lose my temper.... And that means I should only react that way if/when I intend to come back after I cool down. If the logic behind it is to NOT destroy everything, so as to have a better foundation from which to come to an understanding and make things better, then it's only valid so long as there's an IMPLICIT promise that once I cool down I'll come back. Without the promise I'll come back after I cool down, it's just another way of destroying everything......
So it's valid for me to say, "I cannot handle the hurt of this right now (especially when I'm hurting over other things -- when I'm in pain, my control over my temper frays significantly as does my patience with anything that is bringing me more pain than joy at the time) and I'm going to say things we'll both regret me saying if I stay." ONLY IF AND WHEN I also include the promise, "When my temper cools down and I'm not hurting so much, I'll come back. We can figure out how to fix things then, if you still want to. Once I am no longer so hurt and angry and more inclined to destroy than to heal, then I'll return."
I think that's fair. I think me saying, 'Fuck it I'm done and I'm never coming back, I'm just DONE!" without ever giving the other party a chance to make things better or to fix anything or to even understand what in seven hells I'm so upset about is NOT fair of me.... Not to Eric, not to anyone involved in how we got to this point. Frankly not to anyone ever. So I'm going to work on curtailing the "fuck it I'm done and never coming back or giving you a chance to try to make things better" -- that's not something I desire to have in my character, it's not a version of me I wish to be.... I only get to leave when I'm hurt and angry when my leaving includes the promise that after I cool down and my temper burns itself out I'll come back so we can try to fix things.
I'm going to work on that. That's the goal. And it's something that my normal logical not in pain and not angry self will remember for me, no matter what is said in the heat of anger.
Happy 48 Hours Before the Full Moon in Aries and Mercury Just Went Into Pre-shadow Day.
Sorry.......
I really am better now. All my plants made it inside before the frost except the perennials in the bed and the petunias, snapdragons, and marigolds which SHOULD be okay with this light frost....Unhappy, but okay til I figure out what the hell to do with them to bring them in, lol. Today I brought in the last of them that NEEDED to come in. Then Mikaela and I had Chinese food while my parents and her mom and some other coworkers had a games night (I'd have joined in but 1) Mikaela wanted some time with me and 2) Karissa uses hand sanitizers/lotions from bath & Body Works that cause me instant headaches.... And I've brought it up, and she immediately apologized and switched stopped using the problematic scents -- but this is the third one and now I just feel mean. they don't smell BAD, the synthetic perfumes just give me instant headache and in an enclosed room, while still recovering form my migraine, I just couldn't...I'd have been down with another migraine if I'd tried. Synthetic perfumes, also a problem for me.) Anyway, after we finished taking care of the plants and eating and then watering the newly repotted imaptiens and begonias, we made tea and curled up on the couch to read with the doggos snuggled up with us.
My plan for tonight HAD been to lay a fire in the hearth and sit by the fire to read as much of the Tearling trilogy as possible (it's officially "cozy snuggle up with a fire and tasty drinks and good music and books you wish to devour in as few sittings as possible and read them as long as your stomach and bladder and the rest of the world will fucking allow" season, lol. Officially. This season basically runs until "I have work to do in the garden making happy plants and flowers and veggies grow in between a ridiculous amount of concerts and festivals" season. Spring and Fall are just sort of the handoff between the two main seasons, lol. It means that outside of work and concerts and walks/hikes and helping my grandma run errands and cooking delicious meals, if you want to see me then you damn well better be in the mood to curl up and snuggle and hermit hibernate with me til Spring....because that's basically what you get from me once we hit crisp air season. O, and also watching football and figure skating -- both religiously. And soccer matches and gymnastics and winter x games whenever I catch them -- and honestly pretty much any other sports you want to add into the calendar of sports we must watch on the regular is fair game as long as it's not golf, fishing, bowling, or cricket. (The first three are boring af and I really don't fucking get cricket...) I'm also not too keen on tennis or baseball except the Cubs because that's my baseball team, but if you want to watch it I'll curl up to read while you watch it and not mind if baseball is on. Just don't expect me to get excited about baseball -- because I just don't....But, curling up with snacks and tasty beverages for sports is all a part of crisp weather hermitting-hibernation mode, lol. As is writing and sketching, actually.)
Anyway, fire and reading snuggled up at home with the animals and force chilling myself to not do something stupid WAS the plan.... But between time with Mikaela til nearly 11pm and then plans for brunch with my parents and grandma at 10am....I think a cozy fire I haven't yet started is wishful thinking at this point.... But!! I can come in right after brunch tomorrow to work and find homes for all the plants of my jungle taken over shipping shipping and water all my indoor plants and get as much done outside in my flowerbed as possible and THEN go home and shower (preemptively) and lay a fire and read and read and read to my heart's content til whenever I have to meet up with Crissy on Sunday to meet up with Alana, Maddie, and Gus for the Sunday We Banjo 3 show!!! That sounds pretty fucking perfect to me, tbh!
(Alana was going through a super rough patch of depression and her sister Gus wanted to go to the show but couldn't afford tickets for all 3 of them and the other 2 don't have the money and Gus didn't realize it was assigned seats til too late and they all wanted to go and I knew that the place Alana was in she NEEDED something to look forward to with people who love her to help her hold on so I decided to gift them tickets buy them for the ease of my own soul. They'll be driving separate, from La Crosse, or maybe Appleton, they have much plans this weekend, but we're thinking to meet in Chicago area and figure out something that doesn't cost too much money to do. Maybe Lincoln Park Zoo. Or, if I take them to Pl-zn, the 3 of them have never been to the National Museum of Hispanic Art and it's super cool AND free unlike the Art Institute! Plus, there's a super awesome place near there for brunch/cocktails/dinner. Though knowing Alana and Gus, if we say Nando's for dinner (even though Crissy and I find it overpriced good but not great chicken) it'll be absolute perfection for them...and that's worth the overpriced Peri Peri chicken. ALSO, they have Dole Whips, identical to the ones at Disney, at Nando's restaurants in the states!!! So there's that to look forward to!!!!)
Also. this poor little fledgling sparrow.... I hope he makes it through the night.....
Poor guy came to the door wanted to come in when he saw the geraniums were in and recognized me and the dog from working in the garden.... But he couldn't be left inside the building by himself overnight. Not even in the vestibule. Not just the mess he might make, but more prosaically, he'd set off the motion detector alarms..... He's not yet full grown, he hops as much as flies, and he doesn't have all his adult feathers yet.... I made him a nestbox and lined it with packing styrofoam to insulate and then filled it with torn up tissues and after some talking to him and sunflower seeds, got him to bed down into it after I put it in the now empty flower pot that housed the begonias. It's not ideal, a coyote or fox might eat him -- but without a nest of his own or a flock to help him out, he'll die tonight with it getting all the way down to 32...And this was the best I could do for him that would be up off the ground and sheltered from the wind carrying it away.... I really hope I don't come back tomorrow to find his poor lil body dead from the cold asleep in the nestbox I made him.....
Can't leave it for good, but I thought for tonight it was the best I could do for him before I head home.... Poor wee babykins.... If I could, I'd have brought him in somewhere warmer - but that was best I could do so unexpectedly.
P. S. Talked to Mikaela (whose ONLY social media is Instagram and thus dming her is my only motivating reason to sign up and use it) bout Insta lives no longer staying up 24hrs automatically instead disappearing for some users but still working normal for others. She told me it's the new instagram for iOS update everyone hates and it's ONLY iphone users whose insta lives now disappear immediately after they end them. No idea if it's permanent or not. Android is thus far unaffected. At her high school, people are apparently bitching about it as reason enough to switch from iphones to android if not fixed immediately.
And the worst of it... Whether you get my anger that burns hot like a forest fire or your get my cold righteous wrath over a matter of ethics and justice , the way I handle my temper is I speak truths. But I speak horrible truths. I wield truths like swords, the ones I always know and always carry but that I know that people aren't able to face.... truths that they aren't ready yet or strong enough yet to face and accept, that I've KNOWN they aren't ready to hear or face because to hear them without healing/building them to be better will only destroy them. And when I'm angry, those are the truths I speak. But also, it's far more devastating in person than in written form because if you've ever seen me angry in person, I don't speak these truths in an angry tone of voice -- I speak them completely coldly, matter-of-factly, factually as if they are truths that everyone knows and nobody has ever told you but EVERYBODY knows it except you - same as if I were explaining photosynthesis or why dogs pant instead of sweat when they overheat.... It's far more devastating in person. And then on top of that, when I lose control of my temper, there's always a strong energy release that SCARES people, terrifies some -- especially since I do go all Carrie on shit when I lose my temper or even just get minor annoyed. I fry electronics, destroy all bluetooth/wifi/cell signal like I'm creating a faraday cage around me, zap lighbullbs and overload circuits....I've only shattered glass when angry once -- it's mostly anything electronic, anything that is energy based, that I fry when I lose my temper.
Which is why this life I work sooooo fucking hard to control it.... Because me losing my temper is a bit of a force of nature and it's devastating and scary. And most people don't deserve it. And it's also why I've trained myself when I feel my anger building to a point I know I'm about to speak truths edged like knives, not caring what damage they do while I'm angry, I'll often choose to run away and leave the situation to NOT put anyone through that. To let me cool down and to come back and let us work to solve it instead of me spewing who knows what sharp-edged truths at them and pummeling them with the raw force of my chi while the lights flicker and all the phones/laptops/TVs suddenly fail with error codes that don't exist and reset themselves. Don't worry, I don't let me anywhere near any expensive electronics even when annoyed, or hangry. I can also, even when in a cheerful mood but just too much spirit energy flowing through me, play with distortion effects on speakers using just my hands from like 5-10 ft away. And when I'm irked, it happens in waves without my meaning to. Which is, again, why I work really hard this life on controlling my temper. I don't always succeed, but I DO work at it, and I'm trying really hard! Turns out though, that anyone with power enough to force dark ghosts to the light and to fight evil dark spirits that never did incarnate (what I do in my free time, ad hoc) is a helluva lot too much on modern electronics when she loses her temper, lol.
But. I do have the flight response when angry and it started as a means to control myself so I won't destroy everything while my temper is burning hot. But I reckon that doesn't work so well when the way you could truly destroy everything is if you DO run off and abandon it and say, 'Fuck it I'm done with this shit!"
But staying means speaking even harder to bear truths, ones with even sharper edges, and I dunno that that's something anyone involved can handle in this situation -- especially given the intensity of defensiveness and bullying I experienced from the girls in response to the very straight forward truth that offkey vocals, especially country twangs, cause me physical pain......That's a fairly dull edged truth and one that is obvious to anyone who's even the slightest bit observant -- hell I've had other people in a crowd (at multiple concerts, restaurants, doctors offices etc) ask me if I'm okay when a country song has come on and they see me flinch and wince at it. It's obvious enough it causes me pain that an observant person, not even an empath, can tell. Empaths feel my pain like THEY'RE being hit with a whip because of how loud and strong my energy is -- so it means that in crowded places with any percentage of empaths there, I not only feel the nerve pain, but then I have to make my shielding as powerful as possible to keep all that pain inside me bubbled off to not reach other people and hurt them -- and that is energetically physically exhausting at the level I have to do it just to make ti through one song without my pain causing pain to other empath but instead only being visible to anyone observant enough to see me flinch or wince at it...... But it's something complete strangers see, any/every time I'm exposed to offkey vocalists, so I really don't consider it a hard-edged truth at all that off-key and twangy vocals cause me physical pain and they WILL stop me from going to shows...and yet, that's how ttey responded to it and the girls made such a fucking mess of various forms of defensiveness and bullying in response to that dull edged obvious truth. I can't imagine what they'd do if forced to confront the sharp-edged truths they refuse to face.......
I said some much more hard-edged truths in the recent posts though. Not to them, but here. From while I was angry. I didn't realize I could still be so angered about it.... It was really the precogs set off my anger. because I didn't think it fair that I should have to fucking bear those as well, that I be shown it and expected to care enough to say/do things to change their fate lines, after everything else I've been asked to carry in this very one-sided uneven and unfair relationship thus far.....
All that said though, the point of my flight response when angry is to NOT destroy everything with the truths I say and the power behind them when I lose my temper.... And that means I should only react that way if/when I intend to come back after I cool down. If the logic behind it is to NOT destroy everything, so as to have a better foundation from which to come to an understanding and make things better, then it's only valid so long as there's an IMPLICIT promise that once I cool down I'll come back. Without the promise I'll come back after I cool down, it's just another way of destroying everything......
So it's valid for me to say, "I cannot handle the hurt of this right now (especially when I'm hurting over other things -- when I'm in pain, my control over my temper frays significantly as does my patience with anything that is bringing me more pain than joy at the time) and I'm going to say things we'll both regret me saying if I stay." ONLY IF AND WHEN I also include the promise, "When my temper cools down and I'm not hurting so much, I'll come back. We can figure out how to fix things then, if you still want to. Once I am no longer so hurt and angry and more inclined to destroy than to heal, then I'll return."
I think that's fair. I think me saying, 'Fuck it I'm done and I'm never coming back, I'm just DONE!" without ever giving the other party a chance to make things better or to fix anything or to even understand what in seven hells I'm so upset about is NOT fair of me.... Not to Eric, not to anyone involved in how we got to this point. Frankly not to anyone ever. So I'm going to work on curtailing the "fuck it I'm done and never coming back or giving you a chance to try to make things better" -- that's not something I desire to have in my character, it's not a version of me I wish to be.... I only get to leave when I'm hurt and angry when my leaving includes the promise that after I cool down and my temper burns itself out I'll come back so we can try to fix things.
I'm going to work on that. That's the goal. And it's something that my normal logical not in pain and not angry self will remember for me, no matter what is said in the heat of anger.
Happy 48 Hours Before the Full Moon in Aries and Mercury Just Went Into Pre-shadow Day.
Sorry.......
I really am better now. All my plants made it inside before the frost except the perennials in the bed and the petunias, snapdragons, and marigolds which SHOULD be okay with this light frost....Unhappy, but okay til I figure out what the hell to do with them to bring them in, lol. Today I brought in the last of them that NEEDED to come in. Then Mikaela and I had Chinese food while my parents and her mom and some other coworkers had a games night (I'd have joined in but 1) Mikaela wanted some time with me and 2) Karissa uses hand sanitizers/lotions from bath & Body Works that cause me instant headaches.... And I've brought it up, and she immediately apologized and switched stopped using the problematic scents -- but this is the third one and now I just feel mean. they don't smell BAD, the synthetic perfumes just give me instant headache and in an enclosed room, while still recovering form my migraine, I just couldn't...I'd have been down with another migraine if I'd tried. Synthetic perfumes, also a problem for me.) Anyway, after we finished taking care of the plants and eating and then watering the newly repotted imaptiens and begonias, we made tea and curled up on the couch to read with the doggos snuggled up with us.
My plan for tonight HAD been to lay a fire in the hearth and sit by the fire to read as much of the Tearling trilogy as possible (it's officially "cozy snuggle up with a fire and tasty drinks and good music and books you wish to devour in as few sittings as possible and read them as long as your stomach and bladder and the rest of the world will fucking allow" season, lol. Officially. This season basically runs until "I have work to do in the garden making happy plants and flowers and veggies grow in between a ridiculous amount of concerts and festivals" season. Spring and Fall are just sort of the handoff between the two main seasons, lol. It means that outside of work and concerts and walks/hikes and helping my grandma run errands and cooking delicious meals, if you want to see me then you damn well better be in the mood to curl up and snuggle and hermit hibernate with me til Spring....because that's basically what you get from me once we hit crisp air season. O, and also watching football and figure skating -- both religiously. And soccer matches and gymnastics and winter x games whenever I catch them -- and honestly pretty much any other sports you want to add into the calendar of sports we must watch on the regular is fair game as long as it's not golf, fishing, bowling, or cricket. (The first three are boring af and I really don't fucking get cricket...) I'm also not too keen on tennis or baseball except the Cubs because that's my baseball team, but if you want to watch it I'll curl up to read while you watch it and not mind if baseball is on. Just don't expect me to get excited about baseball -- because I just don't....But, curling up with snacks and tasty beverages for sports is all a part of crisp weather hermitting-hibernation mode, lol. As is writing and sketching, actually.)
Anyway, fire and reading snuggled up at home with the animals and force chilling myself to not do something stupid WAS the plan.... But between time with Mikaela til nearly 11pm and then plans for brunch with my parents and grandma at 10am....I think a cozy fire I haven't yet started is wishful thinking at this point.... But!! I can come in right after brunch tomorrow to work and find homes for all the plants of my jungle taken over shipping shipping and water all my indoor plants and get as much done outside in my flowerbed as possible and THEN go home and shower (preemptively) and lay a fire and read and read and read to my heart's content til whenever I have to meet up with Crissy on Sunday to meet up with Alana, Maddie, and Gus for the Sunday We Banjo 3 show!!! That sounds pretty fucking perfect to me, tbh!
(Alana was going through a super rough patch of depression and her sister Gus wanted to go to the show but couldn't afford tickets for all 3 of them and the other 2 don't have the money and Gus didn't realize it was assigned seats til too late and they all wanted to go and I knew that the place Alana was in she NEEDED something to look forward to with people who love her to help her hold on so I decided to gift them tickets buy them for the ease of my own soul. They'll be driving separate, from La Crosse, or maybe Appleton, they have much plans this weekend, but we're thinking to meet in Chicago area and figure out something that doesn't cost too much money to do. Maybe Lincoln Park Zoo. Or, if I take them to Pl-zn, the 3 of them have never been to the National Museum of Hispanic Art and it's super cool AND free unlike the Art Institute! Plus, there's a super awesome place near there for brunch/cocktails/dinner. Though knowing Alana and Gus, if we say Nando's for dinner (even though Crissy and I find it overpriced good but not great chicken) it'll be absolute perfection for them...and that's worth the overpriced Peri Peri chicken. ALSO, they have Dole Whips, identical to the ones at Disney, at Nando's restaurants in the states!!! So there's that to look forward to!!!!)
Also. this poor little fledgling sparrow.... I hope he makes it through the night.....
Poor guy came to the door wanted to come in when he saw the geraniums were in and recognized me and the dog from working in the garden.... But he couldn't be left inside the building by himself overnight. Not even in the vestibule. Not just the mess he might make, but more prosaically, he'd set off the motion detector alarms..... He's not yet full grown, he hops as much as flies, and he doesn't have all his adult feathers yet.... I made him a nestbox and lined it with packing styrofoam to insulate and then filled it with torn up tissues and after some talking to him and sunflower seeds, got him to bed down into it after I put it in the now empty flower pot that housed the begonias. It's not ideal, a coyote or fox might eat him -- but without a nest of his own or a flock to help him out, he'll die tonight with it getting all the way down to 32...And this was the best I could do for him that would be up off the ground and sheltered from the wind carrying it away.... I really hope I don't come back tomorrow to find his poor lil body dead from the cold asleep in the nestbox I made him.....
Can't leave it for good, but I thought for tonight it was the best I could do for him before I head home.... Poor wee babykins.... If I could, I'd have brought him in somewhere warmer - but that was best I could do so unexpectedly.
P. S. Talked to Mikaela (whose ONLY social media is Instagram and thus dming her is my only motivating reason to sign up and use it) bout Insta lives no longer staying up 24hrs automatically instead disappearing for some users but still working normal for others. She told me it's the new instagram for iOS update everyone hates and it's ONLY iphone users whose insta lives now disappear immediately after they end them. No idea if it's permanent or not. Android is thus far unaffected. At her high school, people are apparently bitching about it as reason enough to switch from iphones to android if not fixed immediately.
Friday, October 11, 2019
O alright. That's not how karmic bonds work, I know I know I know. You don't just get to DECIDE "okay I'm done now, by-bye" - they stay til your karma (good and bad) is worked out and both sides are ready to release each other. I'm just very tired of expecting something good and only receiving hurt from him, especially any time any of the girls is in any way involved in it.... Even when they mean well, the poisons unhealed in them make it backfire in his face as soon as Liz, Britt, or Jessie have even the smallest influence on anything to do with it.....
And I don't see the point in the contingent precogs, it makes me angey I'm even having them as if I should do somerhing or care about their fates after everything they've done? Why should it be expected of me to care about them any longer when their feelings about intentionally causing me hurt and pain have been made so clear by them and their choices?! And what's even the point of me knowing when there's nothing I can do or say to shift the fate lines. Unless it's to warn me of the consequences if I choose Dave, but that's stupid and I stand by my decision since my birthday (turns out that insta lives can still stay up longer, it's apparently same as it's always been unless you manually change it - you can thank the rideordiehard account for correcting me on that; means Britt intentionally made the songwriters circle not stay and both her and Liz intentionally made their most recent indefemmedents not stay) that I'm going to internally give up on Eric ever even attempting to make things right and if Dave asks I'll say yes. The situation with Eric is beyond a mess and none of them are doing anything to fix what they've broken so it's only getting worse. I'm ready to be done with the lot of them as a result. I genuinely don't see anything there worth me holding onto any longer. If I'm wrong correct me, but I don't see it any longer. What I see is Liz and Britt went out of their way to insult me and attack me over the country music causing me pain until Liz chose to block me from her personal account in May '18, Britt from her personal account in Oct '18 and someone from the official band account less than 12 hours after Britt did on her personal one. And since then, I've seen Liz, Britt, and recently Eric starting in August INTENTIONALLY use Instagram live for content available nowhere else in full knowledge that it was ostracism and the band account had been used to block and bully fans who didn't like the shift to country radio and country music.
I don't know what there is then to hold onto other than a pattern of bullying and cruelty from the girls and Eric following the lead of the bullying of the girls. I can't even listen to their music anymore. I stopped being able to last October. I could listen to them for a short while between when they announced they were leaving the label and when the decision was made to have Eric go live on the band insta without ever acknowledging or correcting the blocking - just ignoring the fact I responded to his stated intentions by reminding them it was unfair since someone on the account had blocked fans for not liking the country radio choices. I haven't been able to listen to any of their songs since Eric made that choice in August. And I have no desire to listen to ANY songs, from any of them at this point. I don't give a fuck about the new albums, and I don't have any desire to go to the November shows that I already bought tickets for. And this is how it is as a result of their choices, their actions, and whoever tells them they were right in their behavior is also at fault....
And I want nothing to do with anyone who acts with intentional cruelty or condones it or will take part in it if their friends try to convince them it's okay. I simply have no desire for shitty humans in my life, and engaging in intentional cruelty or the excusing of it makes you a shitty human. For as long as you remain guilty of it, continue in the behaviors, and have done nothing to show any remorse or sense of wrongdoing for the evils you did.
So I don't want any precogs involving any of them. I don't want to know. Let their life paths be what they are. I want nothing to do with Liz, Britt, Jessie, or Eric at this point - they've all spent too long showing me they're shitty people and doing nothing to atone for their mistakes of the past or give me reason to believe they feel any remorse or have grown/changed. After the Nov dates, I plan to unfollow them on all socials and not attend any further concerts and not to buy anything further than what I'll receive from my Kickstarter pledge and to let them no longer be any part of my life. Based on their choices and behaviors and the true colors they've shown over the last 2 years, that's what I want at this point. You're welcome to try to convince me to change my mind and make me believe there's something there worth holding onto, something worth fixing - but you're running out of time and you have a lot to make up for and try to make right and you did yourself no favors at all in Aug/Sept - in fact you made it back as bad as it was all of last winter when I decided to cut Eric out of me since his sister had made it quite clear she didn't want me in her life or his. Maybe even worse, because this time, it's about what Eric chose to do and who he chose to be and who he heeded to rationalize him taking part in their bullying.
And I don't see the point in the contingent precogs, it makes me angey I'm even having them as if I should do somerhing or care about their fates after everything they've done? Why should it be expected of me to care about them any longer when their feelings about intentionally causing me hurt and pain have been made so clear by them and their choices?! And what's even the point of me knowing when there's nothing I can do or say to shift the fate lines. Unless it's to warn me of the consequences if I choose Dave, but that's stupid and I stand by my decision since my birthday (turns out that insta lives can still stay up longer, it's apparently same as it's always been unless you manually change it - you can thank the rideordiehard account for correcting me on that; means Britt intentionally made the songwriters circle not stay and both her and Liz intentionally made their most recent indefemmedents not stay) that I'm going to internally give up on Eric ever even attempting to make things right and if Dave asks I'll say yes. The situation with Eric is beyond a mess and none of them are doing anything to fix what they've broken so it's only getting worse. I'm ready to be done with the lot of them as a result. I genuinely don't see anything there worth me holding onto any longer. If I'm wrong correct me, but I don't see it any longer. What I see is Liz and Britt went out of their way to insult me and attack me over the country music causing me pain until Liz chose to block me from her personal account in May '18, Britt from her personal account in Oct '18 and someone from the official band account less than 12 hours after Britt did on her personal one. And since then, I've seen Liz, Britt, and recently Eric starting in August INTENTIONALLY use Instagram live for content available nowhere else in full knowledge that it was ostracism and the band account had been used to block and bully fans who didn't like the shift to country radio and country music.
I don't know what there is then to hold onto other than a pattern of bullying and cruelty from the girls and Eric following the lead of the bullying of the girls. I can't even listen to their music anymore. I stopped being able to last October. I could listen to them for a short while between when they announced they were leaving the label and when the decision was made to have Eric go live on the band insta without ever acknowledging or correcting the blocking - just ignoring the fact I responded to his stated intentions by reminding them it was unfair since someone on the account had blocked fans for not liking the country radio choices. I haven't been able to listen to any of their songs since Eric made that choice in August. And I have no desire to listen to ANY songs, from any of them at this point. I don't give a fuck about the new albums, and I don't have any desire to go to the November shows that I already bought tickets for. And this is how it is as a result of their choices, their actions, and whoever tells them they were right in their behavior is also at fault....
And I want nothing to do with anyone who acts with intentional cruelty or condones it or will take part in it if their friends try to convince them it's okay. I simply have no desire for shitty humans in my life, and engaging in intentional cruelty or the excusing of it makes you a shitty human. For as long as you remain guilty of it, continue in the behaviors, and have done nothing to show any remorse or sense of wrongdoing for the evils you did.
So I don't want any precogs involving any of them. I don't want to know. Let their life paths be what they are. I want nothing to do with Liz, Britt, Jessie, or Eric at this point - they've all spent too long showing me they're shitty people and doing nothing to atone for their mistakes of the past or give me reason to believe they feel any remorse or have grown/changed. After the Nov dates, I plan to unfollow them on all socials and not attend any further concerts and not to buy anything further than what I'll receive from my Kickstarter pledge and to let them no longer be any part of my life. Based on their choices and behaviors and the true colors they've shown over the last 2 years, that's what I want at this point. You're welcome to try to convince me to change my mind and make me believe there's something there worth holding onto, something worth fixing - but you're running out of time and you have a lot to make up for and try to make right and you did yourself no favors at all in Aug/Sept - in fact you made it back as bad as it was all of last winter when I decided to cut Eric out of me since his sister had made it quite clear she didn't want me in her life or his. Maybe even worse, because this time, it's about what Eric chose to do and who he chose to be and who he heeded to rationalize him taking part in their bullying.
I took the dog out just a little bit ago - the fallen leaves in crimson and gold against the vibrantly green grass and the white shimmer from our property lights on the wet pavement were absolutely magically beautiful! Everything had such a particularly beautiful shine to it from the rain and how dark the night is. (sunrise isn't til after 7am now you know.)
One of the neighborhood foxes came by to say hi. It's not one I've met before so I kept my distance while we had a chat until I can be certain this one won't bite Audrey or me. We've never yet been bitten, but it never hurts to be polite with a stranger
I'm better now, my migraine is gone and because I slept my shoulder is healed. (I heal quickly, especially when I can sleep.) I ate the last of some chocolate strawberry love crunch granola and in an hour or so I'll make a full breakfast.
I set that last post to private draft... My precogs needn't be for n'importe qui. And frankly, they deserve for me to stand by the philosophy, "not my circus, not my monkeys" and I genuinely dislike who they have become since bringing Jessie into their lives. Besides, my intervention two years ago means I can do nothing directly when it comes to Ian, Mike, and Adam.... All of the rot in the souls of Liz, Britt, and Eric started when she showed up. I doubt that's a coincidence. It never is. And it means I wash my hands of whatever happens to any of them in that aluminum coffin..... Except Grant. I'd intercede for him because he's on a path of spiritual growth right now.
Honestly, if he were to ask me right now, I'd turn Eric down. Because it's been years now since he has brought joy to my life instead of hurts heaped on more hurts by me caring about him or trying to hang onto him. Seriously now, when was the last time he did anything without it somehow making me sad or hurting me? I don't even like anything about who he's let himself become in recent years. I don't want him in my life, certainly not if it means having Jessie in any way touching my life nor with all the emotional baggage his sister has intentionally and with malice in her intent toward me brought into the mix. The letting go has been hard, but I genuinely don't want the man who would knowingly participate in advertised bullying by going live on an insta account where the girls have blocked fans to ostracize them for being honest that the country radio scene was painfully bad enough to stop you from going to shows. I don't want a man in my life who is capable of that sort of intentional cruelty, no more than I'd want someone in my life whose response to "this causes me pain" is to gaslight and blame me for not being open enough pn the matter and then intentionally ostracize me when I continue to say "this causes me physical paib." And Eric has shown multiple times now in August and September that that's the sort of man he is now and who he chooses to be.... So, since this is what I now have to work with, I wash my hands of him and release him from any karmic bonds inside me that I was clinging to. I can't release me from his toward me, but I don't see as they matter much to him and so they should fall away of their own. May he find whatever it is he's seeking on the path he's chosen for himself....
As for David, I have no idea if he's still in a conplicated with Di, whatever that was or is. I do know I genuinely look forward to seeing Dave and his brother and his band brothers and getting lots of hugs from all of them on Sunday! 😁 As far as I currently know, it's the last I'll see any of them til January, so even though this leg of their tour is absolutely ridiculously planned has them flying all over the place in a constant state of jetlag AND I've seen them like 35 times this calendar year so I've been teasing them about getting sick of me and they insist they could never get sick of me, I'm excited!!
One of the neighborhood foxes came by to say hi. It's not one I've met before so I kept my distance while we had a chat until I can be certain this one won't bite Audrey or me. We've never yet been bitten, but it never hurts to be polite with a stranger
I'm better now, my migraine is gone and because I slept my shoulder is healed. (I heal quickly, especially when I can sleep.) I ate the last of some chocolate strawberry love crunch granola and in an hour or so I'll make a full breakfast.
I set that last post to private draft... My precogs needn't be for n'importe qui. And frankly, they deserve for me to stand by the philosophy, "not my circus, not my monkeys" and I genuinely dislike who they have become since bringing Jessie into their lives. Besides, my intervention two years ago means I can do nothing directly when it comes to Ian, Mike, and Adam.... All of the rot in the souls of Liz, Britt, and Eric started when she showed up. I doubt that's a coincidence. It never is. And it means I wash my hands of whatever happens to any of them in that aluminum coffin..... Except Grant. I'd intercede for him because he's on a path of spiritual growth right now.
Honestly, if he were to ask me right now, I'd turn Eric down. Because it's been years now since he has brought joy to my life instead of hurts heaped on more hurts by me caring about him or trying to hang onto him. Seriously now, when was the last time he did anything without it somehow making me sad or hurting me? I don't even like anything about who he's let himself become in recent years. I don't want him in my life, certainly not if it means having Jessie in any way touching my life nor with all the emotional baggage his sister has intentionally and with malice in her intent toward me brought into the mix. The letting go has been hard, but I genuinely don't want the man who would knowingly participate in advertised bullying by going live on an insta account where the girls have blocked fans to ostracize them for being honest that the country radio scene was painfully bad enough to stop you from going to shows. I don't want a man in my life who is capable of that sort of intentional cruelty, no more than I'd want someone in my life whose response to "this causes me pain" is to gaslight and blame me for not being open enough pn the matter and then intentionally ostracize me when I continue to say "this causes me physical paib." And Eric has shown multiple times now in August and September that that's the sort of man he is now and who he chooses to be.... So, since this is what I now have to work with, I wash my hands of him and release him from any karmic bonds inside me that I was clinging to. I can't release me from his toward me, but I don't see as they matter much to him and so they should fall away of their own. May he find whatever it is he's seeking on the path he's chosen for himself....
As for David, I have no idea if he's still in a conplicated with Di, whatever that was or is. I do know I genuinely look forward to seeing Dave and his brother and his band brothers and getting lots of hugs from all of them on Sunday! 😁 As far as I currently know, it's the last I'll see any of them til January, so even though this leg of their tour is absolutely ridiculously planned has them flying all over the place in a constant state of jetlag AND I've seen them like 35 times this calendar year so I've been teasing them about getting sick of me and they insist they could never get sick of me, I'm excited!!
Thursday, October 10, 2019
For the record, not all synesthetes experience anxiety, distaste, pain, nausea, or vomiting from the pain of it. There are all different types of synesthesia and plenty of people with color-music synesthesia will find certain colors in music ugly the same as in physical color theory, but it doesn't cause them any sort of physical pain. For others it can when it's strong enough a reaction..... I'm of the sort that it can cause incredibly intense nerve pain to certain timbres when they vary offkey - and that includes every part of a twang that is offkey....
But not all synesthetes experience pain from dissonance. It's most common in the forms of color-music synesthesia, but even among color-music synesthetes there are plenty who don't ever experience pain or nausea from it.... I'm just one of the ones who can experience excruciating pain in response to certain timbres when those timbres deviate from a true note and turn pitchy....
Weirdly, I can also have a visceral nausea reaction to voices and accents even when I don't experience most speaking voices as colorful. (three exceptions I know of: Trinidadian accents, Irish accents, and Senegalese French accents have color to their timbre - but these are all very musical accents where the lilt in them makes them seem almost sung.)
I also experience souls/energies/auras as color, and there are some that when they get sick in their soul will make me nauseous or cause me to throw up if I have to be around them... I've never met a Trump supporter or genuine believing Evangelical type Christian who didn't make me violently nauseous - even if they try to keep their bigotry closeted because it isn't "acceptable" to their peers. I actually always get sick to my stomach and so nauseous I can't eat around them. (and that happens in the north as well as the south, lol) Typically, a visceral nausea reaction toward a person is due to something sick or twisted in their soul.... And yes, this does tend to make me lose my appetite completely in crowded places and many big cities (but also small towns) where sick/corrupted souls congregate cause me to throw up immediately upon my arrival.
Usually nausea for me is about smells, pain, migraines, exposure to chemicals/pollutants, or something I ate that my body is rejecting. But the pain to my synesthesia of certain vocalists can do it, as can uncolored voices/specific accents, as can souls that are very sick inside....
Also. Weirdly enough, I've never had any physical instrument that's out of tune make ma nauseous. Painfully out of tune to make me wince at the pain, yeah, but a physical instrument has never made me nauseous no matter how painfully out of tune in the way that a pitchy vocalist will even when they're so close to true that a cheap tuner wouldn't catch that they're offkey.... Also, there are some vocalists who can be quite a bit off a true note and not cause me pain or nausea even though they're flat or sharp. There are also certain voices (as well as specific instruments like piano, acoustic guitar, harp, violin, and cello) that will actually DECREASE my nausea and can help relieve my physical pain - which is why I turn to them and put them on repeat when I have bad migraines.
So the nausea inducing when vocalists are offkey or even the slightest bit pitchy might not be due to the notes themselves, but something in their energy that is getting melded into their timbre is also dissonant or a soul corruption that makes even the slightest bit wavering from true cause me pain it wouldn't if their soul was healthy... I don't know that for certain, but it's possible....it would make sense of a quirk that's always confused me where certain people, their timbres/pitchiness only bothers me during some portions of their recordings/live shows but not earlier or later....
My weak stomach and my canary-like sickliness from pollutants/chemicals is enough to make ye believe in changelings from the fairfolk, non?
You get used to it the longer and better you come to know me, lol.
But not all synesthetes experience pain from dissonance. It's most common in the forms of color-music synesthesia, but even among color-music synesthetes there are plenty who don't ever experience pain or nausea from it.... I'm just one of the ones who can experience excruciating pain in response to certain timbres when those timbres deviate from a true note and turn pitchy....
Weirdly, I can also have a visceral nausea reaction to voices and accents even when I don't experience most speaking voices as colorful. (three exceptions I know of: Trinidadian accents, Irish accents, and Senegalese French accents have color to their timbre - but these are all very musical accents where the lilt in them makes them seem almost sung.)
I also experience souls/energies/auras as color, and there are some that when they get sick in their soul will make me nauseous or cause me to throw up if I have to be around them... I've never met a Trump supporter or genuine believing Evangelical type Christian who didn't make me violently nauseous - even if they try to keep their bigotry closeted because it isn't "acceptable" to their peers. I actually always get sick to my stomach and so nauseous I can't eat around them. (and that happens in the north as well as the south, lol) Typically, a visceral nausea reaction toward a person is due to something sick or twisted in their soul.... And yes, this does tend to make me lose my appetite completely in crowded places and many big cities (but also small towns) where sick/corrupted souls congregate cause me to throw up immediately upon my arrival.
Usually nausea for me is about smells, pain, migraines, exposure to chemicals/pollutants, or something I ate that my body is rejecting. But the pain to my synesthesia of certain vocalists can do it, as can uncolored voices/specific accents, as can souls that are very sick inside....
Also. Weirdly enough, I've never had any physical instrument that's out of tune make ma nauseous. Painfully out of tune to make me wince at the pain, yeah, but a physical instrument has never made me nauseous no matter how painfully out of tune in the way that a pitchy vocalist will even when they're so close to true that a cheap tuner wouldn't catch that they're offkey.... Also, there are some vocalists who can be quite a bit off a true note and not cause me pain or nausea even though they're flat or sharp. There are also certain voices (as well as specific instruments like piano, acoustic guitar, harp, violin, and cello) that will actually DECREASE my nausea and can help relieve my physical pain - which is why I turn to them and put them on repeat when I have bad migraines.
So the nausea inducing when vocalists are offkey or even the slightest bit pitchy might not be due to the notes themselves, but something in their energy that is getting melded into their timbre is also dissonant or a soul corruption that makes even the slightest bit wavering from true cause me pain it wouldn't if their soul was healthy... I don't know that for certain, but it's possible....it would make sense of a quirk that's always confused me where certain people, their timbres/pitchiness only bothers me during some portions of their recordings/live shows but not earlier or later....
My weak stomach and my canary-like sickliness from pollutants/chemicals is enough to make ye believe in changelings from the fairfolk, non?
You get used to it the longer and better you come to know me, lol.
*sigh* I threw up some of salad I had at 5am due to the combined pain from my shoulder and my low-grade migraine from the pressure change. I ate about half of it before I got sick and I only got a little sick not all of it sick. Still. It was unpleasant.
And I'm not currently hungry, but I havwn't eaten much the last couple days and if this becomes a full blown migraine from the barometric shift, I won't eat til the migraine passes.... But as long as I don't feel hungry, I'm loathe to make me anything to eat... There's always a chance after I get sick on something I might not be able to eat it again for a while.... I got REALLY sick on a bbq chicken and bacon sub from Subway (before my pork allergy was known) and couldn't eat ANYTHING bbq sauce for a solid 15 years, even the smell of bbq sauce made me queasy. A little over a year ago, I got incredibly sick on some summer squash that looked fine but had turned, and to this day I don't like itand will sometimes throw up on perfectly fine zucchini/summer squash..... I have no idea when I'll be able to eat it again, but even the smell of zoodles now makes me queasy even with other flavors/scents that should overpower that. I've also had stomach flu of my body completely rejecting all food for over a week til it's ready and then I can only eat small amounts of rice with rosemary for several days to a week before I'm better enough to eat other things.
(this is also why I LIKE having extra weight on me, if I get a multi day migraine or a fever or a stomach flu bad enough it's close to two weeks before I can eat real food again, my body NEEDS some stores to get me through. Without that, I'd end up hospitalized. So I actually start worrying when I get TOO thin. I don't consider it a good thing.... Just in case.)
I have an incredibly weak stomach, always have thrown up easily. (For example: I can't drink black tea on an empty stomach or 3 outof 5 times I try, I throw up. Green tea, white tea, oolong tea, black coffee are all fine on an empty stomach. But never black tea on an empty stomach.) I also throw up pills - my guess it's because gel caps are all pork based and pork gelatin is a common binding agent unless it says it's kosher/halal or unless they say they're vegan, but at this point I've thrown up so many pills thatmy body automatically reje ts them....
And I do throw up from pain. And yes, that includes throwing up bile due to the pain of offkey pitchy vocalists. Most recently The High Women have made me throw up twice. Also Kacey Musgraves, though I don't even feel badly about that as it was a date who thought forcing me to listen to it could make me "get over" my synesthsia induced pain - instead it made me vomit all over his car. 😂 I didn't even apologize for it, because I'd told him and warned him that her vocals caused me physical pain and he said that I was exaggerating and wouldn't change it from her album teying to get me to listen to songs of hers he thought I should like despite my ever more obvious signs of being in pain. So I don't feel bad at all over vomiting all over his car from the pain of being forced to listen to Kacey Musgraves - he didn't listen to me when I explained my syhenesthesia and the pain her offkey vocals caused me. And if you won't listen to somebody telling you, "this causes me physical pain when you do it, please stop or I'll leave the situation" than you're just an absolutely shit human to try to make them see it's really not that bad. So he deserved his car full of vomit, and I honest didn't feel even the slightest bit bad. Also thrown up from Rascal Flatts, multiple times. (one of my best friends in middle school loved The Rascal Flatts - it took thrice me getting sick with them on for her to stop and another time in the car with her parents.) Also Tim McGraw. Also some horrid bro country that's been on places and I never bothered to look it up.... Also thrown up from both Shania Twain and Taylor Swift - though they both take longer til they hit enough offkey notes to cause me enough pain to throw up. Basically, as I've told you many times, with my synesthesia the pain of the twangy vocals in country music is always a problem. And if I'm already nauseous or in pain or you try to make me continue listening to it, then the pain will get intense enough to make a mess for you as well...
Anyway, very weak stomach. Always. Weak enough that the smell of white vinegar would make me retch up bile as a kid even when perfectly healthy, lol. And any pain at all makes it worse.... So even though I've not eaten much the last couple of days, I dunno if I want to try to make me eat this morning between my shoulder and my start of a migraine that I can tell will be full blown in 12 hours or less and will likely last most of tomorrow.... I'll drink some tea (not black tea though!) throughout the day to stave off dehydration, but I think I'll avoid food unless I get hungry....
And I'm not currently hungry, but I havwn't eaten much the last couple days and if this becomes a full blown migraine from the barometric shift, I won't eat til the migraine passes.... But as long as I don't feel hungry, I'm loathe to make me anything to eat... There's always a chance after I get sick on something I might not be able to eat it again for a while.... I got REALLY sick on a bbq chicken and bacon sub from Subway (before my pork allergy was known) and couldn't eat ANYTHING bbq sauce for a solid 15 years, even the smell of bbq sauce made me queasy. A little over a year ago, I got incredibly sick on some summer squash that looked fine but had turned, and to this day I don't like itand will sometimes throw up on perfectly fine zucchini/summer squash..... I have no idea when I'll be able to eat it again, but even the smell of zoodles now makes me queasy even with other flavors/scents that should overpower that. I've also had stomach flu of my body completely rejecting all food for over a week til it's ready and then I can only eat small amounts of rice with rosemary for several days to a week before I'm better enough to eat other things.
(this is also why I LIKE having extra weight on me, if I get a multi day migraine or a fever or a stomach flu bad enough it's close to two weeks before I can eat real food again, my body NEEDS some stores to get me through. Without that, I'd end up hospitalized. So I actually start worrying when I get TOO thin. I don't consider it a good thing.... Just in case.)
I have an incredibly weak stomach, always have thrown up easily. (For example: I can't drink black tea on an empty stomach or 3 outof 5 times I try, I throw up. Green tea, white tea, oolong tea, black coffee are all fine on an empty stomach. But never black tea on an empty stomach.) I also throw up pills - my guess it's because gel caps are all pork based and pork gelatin is a common binding agent unless it says it's kosher/halal or unless they say they're vegan, but at this point I've thrown up so many pills thatmy body automatically reje ts them....
And I do throw up from pain. And yes, that includes throwing up bile due to the pain of offkey pitchy vocalists. Most recently The High Women have made me throw up twice. Also Kacey Musgraves, though I don't even feel badly about that as it was a date who thought forcing me to listen to it could make me "get over" my synesthsia induced pain - instead it made me vomit all over his car. 😂 I didn't even apologize for it, because I'd told him and warned him that her vocals caused me physical pain and he said that I was exaggerating and wouldn't change it from her album teying to get me to listen to songs of hers he thought I should like despite my ever more obvious signs of being in pain. So I don't feel bad at all over vomiting all over his car from the pain of being forced to listen to Kacey Musgraves - he didn't listen to me when I explained my syhenesthesia and the pain her offkey vocals caused me. And if you won't listen to somebody telling you, "this causes me physical pain when you do it, please stop or I'll leave the situation" than you're just an absolutely shit human to try to make them see it's really not that bad. So he deserved his car full of vomit, and I honest didn't feel even the slightest bit bad. Also thrown up from Rascal Flatts, multiple times. (one of my best friends in middle school loved The Rascal Flatts - it took thrice me getting sick with them on for her to stop and another time in the car with her parents.) Also Tim McGraw. Also some horrid bro country that's been on places and I never bothered to look it up.... Also thrown up from both Shania Twain and Taylor Swift - though they both take longer til they hit enough offkey notes to cause me enough pain to throw up. Basically, as I've told you many times, with my synesthesia the pain of the twangy vocals in country music is always a problem. And if I'm already nauseous or in pain or you try to make me continue listening to it, then the pain will get intense enough to make a mess for you as well...
Anyway, very weak stomach. Always. Weak enough that the smell of white vinegar would make me retch up bile as a kid even when perfectly healthy, lol. And any pain at all makes it worse.... So even though I've not eaten much the last couple of days, I dunno if I want to try to make me eat this morning between my shoulder and my start of a migraine that I can tell will be full blown in 12 hours or less and will likely last most of tomorrow.... I'll drink some tea (not black tea though!) throughout the day to stave off dehydration, but I think I'll avoid food unless I get hungry....
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
I slept on my shoulder funny two nights ago (the one that subluxates easily) and even though I popped it back in the socket and currently have full range of motion, it clicks a hell of a lot louder than usual (it always clicks doing certain movements, especially rotating forwards and sometimes when I shrug - but not while throwing a ball) and I have a burning pain in the connective tissue in the shoulder itself (front/upper part of the ball and socket joint) and also in the lower area of the shoulder under my scapula either of which may be inflammation in a bursa from having the subluxation while I slept for so long before putting it back in place... It's really the pain under the scapula troubling me most though.....
I still have full range of motion and it's stopped hurting as much since I finally got it properly back in place this morning. But I'm wondering if I should put my sling on to keep it in place.... At least for today.... I probably should.... If only to hold it in place. I won't go in - they won't do anything for it unless I have lost range of motion or it's a complete dislocation where the humerus head is visibly entirely out of the socket. Not worth the copay for a visit. (and I have extraordinarily good health insurance. Just not worth paying it when I know what they'll tell me. And as for pain meds, I always throw up trying to swallow pills, any pills, so not really an option unless it's liquid or powder or dissolves in water. So mostly I just endure pain.)
My shoulder subluxation issues go back a long time. Started in middle school, but were made worse by the repetitive stress of it getting yanked out of the socket while leash training my puppy about 11 years ago. She's only 30lbs, but she used to pull and try to take off running when I was first leash training her. I actually have 1/3 less the amount of protective cartilage in all my joints which is why I can hyperextend and am ridiculously flexible but also why I break my knuckles instead of jamming them and I can't run on cement or treadmills without causing my knees to buckle for several days afterward. I love running best on wet sand, actually - I can run for miles on wet sand along a beach with no problem - but anything more than half mile on cement or hard dirt and my knees will just collapse while I'm standing, with no warning. It's also why my shoulder subluxation is a problem, especially in hot yoga classes. I love hot yoga, but I need to be constantly mindful and careful when I do it with my natural hyperextension that I don't subluxate that shoulder too far. When my shoulder is in as bad shape as it is right now, I always use the other arm for her leash. I can still lift and carry things and most of the time it doesn't hurt, just sometimes it'll subluxate while I sleep and then if I don't put it back in place right away so things take longer to heal. I also have very skinny shoulders with very prominent collar bones, always have, and no amount of lifting weights has ever bulked up my shoulders.
Today that shoulder is bad enough I should put it in a sling. Give it a couple days to stabilize and heal again. can't say I will/ But I know I ought to.
I still have full range of motion and it's stopped hurting as much since I finally got it properly back in place this morning. But I'm wondering if I should put my sling on to keep it in place.... At least for today.... I probably should.... If only to hold it in place. I won't go in - they won't do anything for it unless I have lost range of motion or it's a complete dislocation where the humerus head is visibly entirely out of the socket. Not worth the copay for a visit. (and I have extraordinarily good health insurance. Just not worth paying it when I know what they'll tell me. And as for pain meds, I always throw up trying to swallow pills, any pills, so not really an option unless it's liquid or powder or dissolves in water. So mostly I just endure pain.)
My shoulder subluxation issues go back a long time. Started in middle school, but were made worse by the repetitive stress of it getting yanked out of the socket while leash training my puppy about 11 years ago. She's only 30lbs, but she used to pull and try to take off running when I was first leash training her. I actually have 1/3 less the amount of protective cartilage in all my joints which is why I can hyperextend and am ridiculously flexible but also why I break my knuckles instead of jamming them and I can't run on cement or treadmills without causing my knees to buckle for several days afterward. I love running best on wet sand, actually - I can run for miles on wet sand along a beach with no problem - but anything more than half mile on cement or hard dirt and my knees will just collapse while I'm standing, with no warning. It's also why my shoulder subluxation is a problem, especially in hot yoga classes. I love hot yoga, but I need to be constantly mindful and careful when I do it with my natural hyperextension that I don't subluxate that shoulder too far. When my shoulder is in as bad shape as it is right now, I always use the other arm for her leash. I can still lift and carry things and most of the time it doesn't hurt, just sometimes it'll subluxate while I sleep and then if I don't put it back in place right away so things take longer to heal. I also have very skinny shoulders with very prominent collar bones, always have, and no amount of lifting weights has ever bulked up my shoulders.
Today that shoulder is bad enough I should put it in a sling. Give it a couple days to stabilize and heal again. can't say I will/ But I know I ought to.
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
So I'm not generally a covetous person, I tend to love things, and people, with an open hand. I love what I love for the qualities that make it lovable to me, but I care more that the thing is loved or that the person is healthy and happy than that they're mine. I tend to let people go more than most people do not because I don't care, not because I wouldn't want them in my own life for my sake -- but because I care more that they be happy than that be mine. I don't feel the need to burden people with my presence unless they want, unless they make it clear to me that my absence is the burden as opposed to my presence. As for things, I get joy from things that please me, but most of them I'd be equally pleased with something else that serves the function and I find aesthetically or sensually pleasing.
So of all my grandparent's things (now my grandmother's things, my sparrow grandma) there have only been 3 things I've ever wanted. There are many things that I admired, many things I liked, many things I loved -- but only 3 I desired for myself. There are some that I liked enough they'd make me happy to have (my grandfather's sweater which my father has, the Seder plate my grandma has because I started cooking/helping her with the Seder and Thanksgiving when I was in middle school, the giant saddlebags that were in the living room that my parents have, the old samovar from Russia that my parents also have, my grandma's weighted key digital piano I have, my grandfather's green metal desk and old wooden chair that were his grandfather's before him -- both of which I have, the old yellow toy chest from the playroom that I've been told was my Aunt Linda's when she was a little girl on the farm and which I also have and have repainted yellow, the painted wood cabinet that was in the kids playroom and had all our books and coloring books and markers/crayons which my Uncle Steve/Aunt Sondra have, the framed oversized poster photograph of Jack who was my Uncle Jeff's dog then my dad's then my grandparents and then our very first shop dog at our family computer store that's older than I am... I also have this sentimental wish that I could have had the old tape of Giant Steps that was in my grandfather's car, even though he bought me a CD for it was the first CD I ever owned, on my last birthday he could come shopping with us. (Family tradition -- at birthdays, my grandparents take/took the grandchildren while under 21 out for a special dinner anywhere of their choice and to go shopping at any store of their choice to buy anything they want within a budget they were given.) So I have the copy of Coltrane's Giant Steps that my grandfather bought me and a nother copy I could listen to in case of scratching it -- but I'd have liked to have had the old worn out tape that I would always put in every time I got into his car. but nobody ever knew what happened to it, not even my grandma...just one of those little things that disappeared during the grief and bereavement and letting go process. I also have things I own that belonged to my great grandparents that I love for aesthetic reasons and after hearing the stories of it but which I have no personal memories attached to these items.) These are all things that I love, but that if they went to other people in the family who also loved them, I'd be okay with it.
But there are three things my grandparents had that I coveted, that I wanted for myself.
1)
2) The giant tapestry, about 4' tall and 8' wide, that hung over the daybed in the playroom when I was a child. It's a reprint on tapestry in a red velvet matte and gorgeous gilt wood frame -- but all the color is bleached out of it from my grandparents having it in the sun when my father was in high school. It's of a 17th century bar wench and a couple musicians surrounded by wine barrels. I spent a lot of hours laying on the daybed reading in the sunshine with the tapestry hanging above me and me looking up at every time I wanted a break to think about something particularly lovely/surprising/worth thinking over in the book. And when Shauna and Sabra were very little, there were multiple rainy days where we'd sit and invent stories of the tapestry, mostly m inventing them as I was the one who always made up the games and stories and then we each got to play our own characters however we wanted in that framework and any plot twist anyone threw into it became new canon, lol. But the stories, the setup, that was me typically -- especially when they were too bored or squirrelly or overtired to focus on imagining or playing a game. I thought that when grandma redid that room to make it into Richard's office that she had sold it. She told me she didn't know what happened to it, thought it got sold since nobody had said they wanted it... I was utterly devastated as it was the third most important thing to me of all the things they owned. When my Uncle Jeff was going through an incredibly messy divorce and I was watching his kids (the kids he wanted because he'd never had kids and she never wanted as she had 3 grown kids from a previous failed marriage but she let him reverse his vasectomy and agreed to have them to try to keep him and let him name his son (the first male grandkid, all of us 9 grandkids besides Teddy are girls) Theodore after my grandpa Ted -- then when their relationship went sour did everything she could to keep Teddy and Maddie away from him and poison them against him.... Like I said, a VERY messy divorce.) Anyway, during the first summer he had custody of the kids as the divorce was happening, I watched my cousins during the day and gave them a structured fun summer with me and my dog and someone they loved they could talk to when they were hurting from how messy the divorce was. And then I came in to get hours in at work at night/weekends,and still went to lots of concerts on the weekend, lol. While this was happening and they still had shared assets, Gail sold all his power tools (he's a now retired construction worker and carpenter -- so these were his actual livelihood) a motorcycle he had in parts to put together he'd promised Teddy he'd wait so they couldd build it together once Teddy was a bit bigger. So he had reason to be concerned and asked me if he could put a couple things he had of sentimental value in my storage closet. two of them were carved wooden chairs that need a little TLC (my favorite of the two is the rocking chair with the Nordic wind god across it that his first exwife found and stripped the finish off and currently has some cracks but I use as is -- it's the most beautiful rocking chair I've ever seen and the most comfortable I've ever sat in) AND the tapestry from my grandmother. I teared up and choked up told him how much I'd always loved it and thought she'd sold it and it was all I could do not to bawl because I was so happy and he said, "You know what, I have no idea when I'll have a house I can put these chairs or hang this tapestry and I can never repay you for how much you've helped me and the kids this summer. I want you to just have these two things, and the other chair if you want to try to fix the broken seat on it. That makes me even happier than if I had them."
It's the third most important to me, and I already have the tapestry. As a gift from my uncle when I hadn't even known he had it....
2) The marble lion. When I was a very small toddler, my grandfather would hold me on it while I rode on it, as he did with his boys before me and as his father had with him which was one of his few memories of his own father. Nobody knows how old it is, but it was my in my grandfather's side of the family when he was a very small toddler, back during WWII. My sister never liked riding it but she loves how classy regal it is, Shauna and Sabra were too little when he was sick/died for it, and Teddy/Maddie/the twins were all scared of the lion thought it guarded the wine glasses and wine bottle that she had next to it after marrying Richard and so the 4 of them would get yelled at any time they got too close to be sure they'd not break the glass. Of all the grandkids, I'm the one who loves it. And as the youngest of his siblings, my dad loves it most followed by Uncle Jeff. My grandma had it in her head it should go to a boy because she mostly remembered boys riding it and for some reason thought it ought to go to Teddy even though he never had a connection other than getting yelled at for trying to go near it -- until I reminded her that I also had ridden the lion and showed her the pictures of it. She still wants it to go to a boy but has decided it shall go to my father and it will be for him and Miche/me to figure out where it goes from there. Jack is already getting too big to ride on it and Mo will be by the time she'd have the opportunity. Miche said it would like nice at their place and they'd love it, but not as much as me so if I want it, and especially if I have kids of the right size/age, she'd be happy to know it ended up with me and stayed in the family and only asked that I offer it to her sooner than ever sell it. It's the second most important thing to me they own.
It's the second most important to me, and it's to go to my father and it's verbally understood that I'm to have it after him unless I don't want it. Honestly though, after me having it, I'd love for it to go to my nephew Jack rather than any of my own kids I might have...because my nephew is the reincarnation of my grandfather, and he remembers things my sister never even knew that are memories I shared with my grandpa that he's brought up to me. He may be turning 4 at the end of this month, but in a lot of ways he's a very serious little man and it's meant a lot to both him and me for me to be able to teach and do things with him that my grandfather taught me and did with me when I was a small. child....Which is why even if the marble lion goes to me, if Jack has any interest in it I'd consider his claim on it to have precedence over any children I might have no matter how much they'd love it.... Because it was Jack's when Jack was Grandpa Ted. And that would feel right somehow.
3) The thing I've always wanted most of all is the grandfather clock. It's nearly 8ft tall, solid dark wood with heroes and lions all over it and carved all over then has a gilded and mother of pearl face and a large bronze pendulum inside. Everyone in the family loves and adores it. When I was very little, I remember my grandfather lifting me up to sit on his shoulder and opening it up and explaining to me how the gears work and how to wind it and then whenever I was visiting, my grandparents would let me carefully wind it with one of them holding me up or holding me steady on a stepstool/ladder. It's been stopped ever since grandpa died -- because my grandmother didn't know how to wind it and the one time she had me do it, the sound of the pendulum swinging and the ticking of it made her cry for missing him and for how much it sounded like a heart. So it's been silent ever since, and we don't actually know if the mechanism inside it still works. It also got some cracks in the woodwork part which my Uncle jeff has meticulously repaired as needed. And because of that, grandma always said and everyone felt it fair, that as the eldest and the one who took care of the clock itself, he'd have first right to the clock. And that was fair and right and we all agreed -- things go first dibs to children and Jeff had taken care of it these past 25 years even if it has been silent. Everyone knows how much I love it and want it, but everyone wants it and I always agreed that Jeff should get it if he wants it.
The last time grandma and I talked about the clock was about a month or so ago. And she started telling me how NOBODY wanted it. How it didn't even work and everyone has digital clocks now anyway and the heavy dark wood isn't even trendy anymore and how someone, Sabra she thought, had expected it to be worth quite a lot but after getting it appraised it isn't any longer worth as much as she thought but that she'd sell it and then split the money between the four kids evenly. I was devastated and heartbroken and tried to argue her out of it about how it IS my aesthetic exactly and I'd take good care of it and I DO want it and she just dug in her heels kept insisting this is what she'd do with it.... So I realized I was getting nowhere and shut up and when i saw my parents that evening I said, "Alright da. I have something I need your help with. You might have to be sneaky, but I think if you help me, we can make this okay." So I told him grandma's plan she'd told me regarding the clock and how upset I was over it but she hadn't listened to me over it and was going to sell it -- and I asked him to be involved with the sale/removal to find out (or to "broker" the selling to an antique shop) and then to make sure it got to me and that grandma got paid whatever she felt it was worth and I'd please borrow the money and pay him back but I refused to see it leave the family and if paying cash for it andsubterfuge was the only way then damnit I would! He promised to help me and to see where things were with grandma about it.
Yesterday, after having lunch and then taking her shopping, she told me that the grandfather clock was mine -- that my dad and all the kids know and felt it was fair especially with how much I help her out driving her around running her errands (which the kids do, but none of the other grandkids do for her) She said that it was mine even though everyone wanted it they'd agreed it's to go to me whenever she was ready to downsize move out and and that she'd just be teasing me yanking my chain the day she told me she'd sell it. (AND MY PARENTS KNEW and they all had a huge laugh at my resourcefulness for a backup plan if she really was going to be so stubborn about selling it - but my parents had promised grandma after I approached them with my secondary plan that grandma would get to tell me.) The only caveat she put on it was that AFTER it was mine, I was to get it going again, to find a clock repairman and get the clock ticking again and to keep it in good condition and ticking. Which of course I would. I have no idea where you FIND someone who can get a clock working in the modern world, but that's a problem for me to solve another day.
I was utterly speechless and tearing up with joy and could only just hug her and hug her and hug her til I finally whispered "thank you! O thank you grandma!" We're going to keep it at her condo, in the hallway by the door, where it's been since she and grandpa moved in there - but when she downsizes moves to assisted living the clock will come to live with me.
I'm still completely in shock by it -- I genuinely never expected I'd ACTUALLY get to end up with it as a gift from her.... And then this last month or two I've been trying to accept it might get sold and I might not get it even with my father's help to be sneaky if she DID sell it. And here she'd already decided I should have it and talked to her kids about it and they agreed out of gratitude for the care and help I gave her just because I love her......
She got me good with that one, lol. But I'm so happy you have no idea!!! I'll have to figure out how to get it working again and if it needs any woodowrking TLC, but I'm so happy right now about it!!!!
The giant tapestry, the marble lion, and the wooden grandfather clock. these three things. Never thought they'd end up in my care, much as I have always coveted them and seen precogs of them in my someday house..... But I have 1 and now 1 is promised (both as a thank yous for care and love I'd have showered on the people involved anyway) and the 3rd promised to my father of the 4 kids.... I still don't quite understand how I got so lucky....
(From my other grandma, the only thing I ever covetted was her large floor harp... And she sold it to a colleague at the universitywhen they retired moved to Hawaii. They had many many lovely things, and I have some absolutely incredible jewelry and gorgeous artwork and well-loved books that I've inherited from her and that I love and makes me think of her every time...and I have things that belonged to Rene (my great-great-aunt Irene who died when I was in high school) and my great-grandma I never met... But the only thing I WANTED from Grandma Mitsy was the floor harp I was allowed to play my random made up melodies on as a child provided I was careful and I didn't play anything that would be unpleasant for people to hear.... I can always buy me another harp at some point. But it won't be the same. No matter how much I love it, it won't be THAT harp. Y'know? It's not the end of the world, just a bit of wistfulness wish in me that will always be there.)
So of all my grandparent's things (now my grandmother's things, my sparrow grandma) there have only been 3 things I've ever wanted. There are many things that I admired, many things I liked, many things I loved -- but only 3 I desired for myself. There are some that I liked enough they'd make me happy to have (my grandfather's sweater which my father has, the Seder plate my grandma has because I started cooking/helping her with the Seder and Thanksgiving when I was in middle school, the giant saddlebags that were in the living room that my parents have, the old samovar from Russia that my parents also have, my grandma's weighted key digital piano I have, my grandfather's green metal desk and old wooden chair that were his grandfather's before him -- both of which I have, the old yellow toy chest from the playroom that I've been told was my Aunt Linda's when she was a little girl on the farm and which I also have and have repainted yellow, the painted wood cabinet that was in the kids playroom and had all our books and coloring books and markers/crayons which my Uncle Steve/Aunt Sondra have, the framed oversized poster photograph of Jack who was my Uncle Jeff's dog then my dad's then my grandparents and then our very first shop dog at our family computer store that's older than I am... I also have this sentimental wish that I could have had the old tape of Giant Steps that was in my grandfather's car, even though he bought me a CD for it was the first CD I ever owned, on my last birthday he could come shopping with us. (Family tradition -- at birthdays, my grandparents take/took the grandchildren while under 21 out for a special dinner anywhere of their choice and to go shopping at any store of their choice to buy anything they want within a budget they were given.) So I have the copy of Coltrane's Giant Steps that my grandfather bought me and a nother copy I could listen to in case of scratching it -- but I'd have liked to have had the old worn out tape that I would always put in every time I got into his car. but nobody ever knew what happened to it, not even my grandma...just one of those little things that disappeared during the grief and bereavement and letting go process. I also have things I own that belonged to my great grandparents that I love for aesthetic reasons and after hearing the stories of it but which I have no personal memories attached to these items.) These are all things that I love, but that if they went to other people in the family who also loved them, I'd be okay with it.
But there are three things my grandparents had that I coveted, that I wanted for myself.
1)
2) The giant tapestry, about 4' tall and 8' wide, that hung over the daybed in the playroom when I was a child. It's a reprint on tapestry in a red velvet matte and gorgeous gilt wood frame -- but all the color is bleached out of it from my grandparents having it in the sun when my father was in high school. It's of a 17th century bar wench and a couple musicians surrounded by wine barrels. I spent a lot of hours laying on the daybed reading in the sunshine with the tapestry hanging above me and me looking up at every time I wanted a break to think about something particularly lovely/surprising/worth thinking over in the book. And when Shauna and Sabra were very little, there were multiple rainy days where we'd sit and invent stories of the tapestry, mostly m inventing them as I was the one who always made up the games and stories and then we each got to play our own characters however we wanted in that framework and any plot twist anyone threw into it became new canon, lol. But the stories, the setup, that was me typically -- especially when they were too bored or squirrelly or overtired to focus on imagining or playing a game. I thought that when grandma redid that room to make it into Richard's office that she had sold it. She told me she didn't know what happened to it, thought it got sold since nobody had said they wanted it... I was utterly devastated as it was the third most important thing to me of all the things they owned. When my Uncle Jeff was going through an incredibly messy divorce and I was watching his kids (the kids he wanted because he'd never had kids and she never wanted as she had 3 grown kids from a previous failed marriage but she let him reverse his vasectomy and agreed to have them to try to keep him and let him name his son (the first male grandkid, all of us 9 grandkids besides Teddy are girls) Theodore after my grandpa Ted -- then when their relationship went sour did everything she could to keep Teddy and Maddie away from him and poison them against him.... Like I said, a VERY messy divorce.) Anyway, during the first summer he had custody of the kids as the divorce was happening, I watched my cousins during the day and gave them a structured fun summer with me and my dog and someone they loved they could talk to when they were hurting from how messy the divorce was. And then I came in to get hours in at work at night/weekends,and still went to lots of concerts on the weekend, lol. While this was happening and they still had shared assets, Gail sold all his power tools (he's a now retired construction worker and carpenter -- so these were his actual livelihood) a motorcycle he had in parts to put together he'd promised Teddy he'd wait so they couldd build it together once Teddy was a bit bigger. So he had reason to be concerned and asked me if he could put a couple things he had of sentimental value in my storage closet. two of them were carved wooden chairs that need a little TLC (my favorite of the two is the rocking chair with the Nordic wind god across it that his first exwife found and stripped the finish off and currently has some cracks but I use as is -- it's the most beautiful rocking chair I've ever seen and the most comfortable I've ever sat in) AND the tapestry from my grandmother. I teared up and choked up told him how much I'd always loved it and thought she'd sold it and it was all I could do not to bawl because I was so happy and he said, "You know what, I have no idea when I'll have a house I can put these chairs or hang this tapestry and I can never repay you for how much you've helped me and the kids this summer. I want you to just have these two things, and the other chair if you want to try to fix the broken seat on it. That makes me even happier than if I had them."
It's the third most important to me, and I already have the tapestry. As a gift from my uncle when I hadn't even known he had it....
2) The marble lion. When I was a very small toddler, my grandfather would hold me on it while I rode on it, as he did with his boys before me and as his father had with him which was one of his few memories of his own father. Nobody knows how old it is, but it was my in my grandfather's side of the family when he was a very small toddler, back during WWII. My sister never liked riding it but she loves how classy regal it is, Shauna and Sabra were too little when he was sick/died for it, and Teddy/Maddie/the twins were all scared of the lion thought it guarded the wine glasses and wine bottle that she had next to it after marrying Richard and so the 4 of them would get yelled at any time they got too close to be sure they'd not break the glass. Of all the grandkids, I'm the one who loves it. And as the youngest of his siblings, my dad loves it most followed by Uncle Jeff. My grandma had it in her head it should go to a boy because she mostly remembered boys riding it and for some reason thought it ought to go to Teddy even though he never had a connection other than getting yelled at for trying to go near it -- until I reminded her that I also had ridden the lion and showed her the pictures of it. She still wants it to go to a boy but has decided it shall go to my father and it will be for him and Miche/me to figure out where it goes from there. Jack is already getting too big to ride on it and Mo will be by the time she'd have the opportunity. Miche said it would like nice at their place and they'd love it, but not as much as me so if I want it, and especially if I have kids of the right size/age, she'd be happy to know it ended up with me and stayed in the family and only asked that I offer it to her sooner than ever sell it. It's the second most important thing to me they own.
It's the second most important to me, and it's to go to my father and it's verbally understood that I'm to have it after him unless I don't want it. Honestly though, after me having it, I'd love for it to go to my nephew Jack rather than any of my own kids I might have...because my nephew is the reincarnation of my grandfather, and he remembers things my sister never even knew that are memories I shared with my grandpa that he's brought up to me. He may be turning 4 at the end of this month, but in a lot of ways he's a very serious little man and it's meant a lot to both him and me for me to be able to teach and do things with him that my grandfather taught me and did with me when I was a small. child....Which is why even if the marble lion goes to me, if Jack has any interest in it I'd consider his claim on it to have precedence over any children I might have no matter how much they'd love it.... Because it was Jack's when Jack was Grandpa Ted. And that would feel right somehow.
3) The thing I've always wanted most of all is the grandfather clock. It's nearly 8ft tall, solid dark wood with heroes and lions all over it and carved all over then has a gilded and mother of pearl face and a large bronze pendulum inside. Everyone in the family loves and adores it. When I was very little, I remember my grandfather lifting me up to sit on his shoulder and opening it up and explaining to me how the gears work and how to wind it and then whenever I was visiting, my grandparents would let me carefully wind it with one of them holding me up or holding me steady on a stepstool/ladder. It's been stopped ever since grandpa died -- because my grandmother didn't know how to wind it and the one time she had me do it, the sound of the pendulum swinging and the ticking of it made her cry for missing him and for how much it sounded like a heart. So it's been silent ever since, and we don't actually know if the mechanism inside it still works. It also got some cracks in the woodwork part which my Uncle jeff has meticulously repaired as needed. And because of that, grandma always said and everyone felt it fair, that as the eldest and the one who took care of the clock itself, he'd have first right to the clock. And that was fair and right and we all agreed -- things go first dibs to children and Jeff had taken care of it these past 25 years even if it has been silent. Everyone knows how much I love it and want it, but everyone wants it and I always agreed that Jeff should get it if he wants it.
The last time grandma and I talked about the clock was about a month or so ago. And she started telling me how NOBODY wanted it. How it didn't even work and everyone has digital clocks now anyway and the heavy dark wood isn't even trendy anymore and how someone, Sabra she thought, had expected it to be worth quite a lot but after getting it appraised it isn't any longer worth as much as she thought but that she'd sell it and then split the money between the four kids evenly. I was devastated and heartbroken and tried to argue her out of it about how it IS my aesthetic exactly and I'd take good care of it and I DO want it and she just dug in her heels kept insisting this is what she'd do with it.... So I realized I was getting nowhere and shut up and when i saw my parents that evening I said, "Alright da. I have something I need your help with. You might have to be sneaky, but I think if you help me, we can make this okay." So I told him grandma's plan she'd told me regarding the clock and how upset I was over it but she hadn't listened to me over it and was going to sell it -- and I asked him to be involved with the sale/removal to find out (or to "broker" the selling to an antique shop) and then to make sure it got to me and that grandma got paid whatever she felt it was worth and I'd please borrow the money and pay him back but I refused to see it leave the family and if paying cash for it andsubterfuge was the only way then damnit I would! He promised to help me and to see where things were with grandma about it.
Yesterday, after having lunch and then taking her shopping, she told me that the grandfather clock was mine -- that my dad and all the kids know and felt it was fair especially with how much I help her out driving her around running her errands (which the kids do, but none of the other grandkids do for her) She said that it was mine even though everyone wanted it they'd agreed it's to go to me whenever she was ready to downsize move out and and that she'd just be teasing me yanking my chain the day she told me she'd sell it. (AND MY PARENTS KNEW and they all had a huge laugh at my resourcefulness for a backup plan if she really was going to be so stubborn about selling it - but my parents had promised grandma after I approached them with my secondary plan that grandma would get to tell me.) The only caveat she put on it was that AFTER it was mine, I was to get it going again, to find a clock repairman and get the clock ticking again and to keep it in good condition and ticking. Which of course I would. I have no idea where you FIND someone who can get a clock working in the modern world, but that's a problem for me to solve another day.
I was utterly speechless and tearing up with joy and could only just hug her and hug her and hug her til I finally whispered "thank you! O thank you grandma!" We're going to keep it at her condo, in the hallway by the door, where it's been since she and grandpa moved in there - but when she downsizes moves to assisted living the clock will come to live with me.
I'm still completely in shock by it -- I genuinely never expected I'd ACTUALLY get to end up with it as a gift from her.... And then this last month or two I've been trying to accept it might get sold and I might not get it even with my father's help to be sneaky if she DID sell it. And here she'd already decided I should have it and talked to her kids about it and they agreed out of gratitude for the care and help I gave her just because I love her......
She got me good with that one, lol. But I'm so happy you have no idea!!! I'll have to figure out how to get it working again and if it needs any woodowrking TLC, but I'm so happy right now about it!!!!
The giant tapestry, the marble lion, and the wooden grandfather clock. these three things. Never thought they'd end up in my care, much as I have always coveted them and seen precogs of them in my someday house..... But I have 1 and now 1 is promised (both as a thank yous for care and love I'd have showered on the people involved anyway) and the 3rd promised to my father of the 4 kids.... I still don't quite understand how I got so lucky....
(From my other grandma, the only thing I ever covetted was her large floor harp... And she sold it to a colleague at the universitywhen they retired moved to Hawaii. They had many many lovely things, and I have some absolutely incredible jewelry and gorgeous artwork and well-loved books that I've inherited from her and that I love and makes me think of her every time...and I have things that belonged to Rene (my great-great-aunt Irene who died when I was in high school) and my great-grandma I never met... But the only thing I WANTED from Grandma Mitsy was the floor harp I was allowed to play my random made up melodies on as a child provided I was careful and I didn't play anything that would be unpleasant for people to hear.... I can always buy me another harp at some point. But it won't be the same. No matter how much I love it, it won't be THAT harp. Y'know? It's not the end of the world, just a bit of wistfulness wish in me that will always be there.)
Monday, October 7, 2019
I found a dead bird this morning. I feel like I always do 3 weeks before Samhain, every year since I was a child. I can't tell if it died of natural causes, biomagnification of poisonous herbicides/pesticides, or being attacked by one of the very territorial robins in my choke cherry rree... I know it didn't die from flying into my balcony door - there was no thunk and my windows needs me to wash them. I do know it wasn't there at sunrise, then suddenly there was a dead bird on my balcony for me to deal with just before 8am.... I wrapped him in paper toweling took him to the pond. Not Tiedemann's where the dog and I go on walk - that would have been a bit of a distance to walk with a dead bird. Just to the man made pond full of cattails and frogs that's at the end of the cul-de-sac I live on. The pond is literally under 50ft from my door, so all summer long if the windows are open at night it sounds like you're not even in a city - though there's a steep incline down to the pond itself. I left the bird this side of the no trespassing sign for the condos down there, at the top of the hill. Down by the pond itself there isn't really much worth exploring, it's marshy and muddy and buggy and the hill can be treacherous to try to get back up when it's wet. I really only go down there to return lost frogs that get caught in the garage sometimes. You have a better view by the trees up the top of the little hill which is property of my condo. There's a tree there that I'm fond of sitting under with the dog and reading and watching the entire pond from there. It's also a good spot to watch the sunrise.
Anyway, the poor bird has been laid to rest. I didn't bury him, let him go back to nature. Somber start to a morning though.
Gotta run! Must shower and get ready and hopefully finish my book before taking grandma to run errands. I should have told her 12:30, not noon.
Anyway, the poor bird has been laid to rest. I didn't bury him, let him go back to nature. Somber start to a morning though.
Gotta run! Must shower and get ready and hopefully finish my book before taking grandma to run errands. I should have told her 12:30, not noon.
Saturday, October 5, 2019
So I realized something tonight, somewhere on the drive back after seeing Macbeth again, this time on closing night.
Britt is having a hard time over this, same as Eric, same as me.
1) She doesn't WANT to be what fucks things up for Eric, he's her brother and she loves him dearly and she wants him to be happy.
2) She was genuinely hurt by my response to pitchy vocalists, especially in the country scene. It felt like rejection and judgement of her - and that hurt her. I may have meant it as the facts, "this causes me physical pain and asking me to listen to it is demanding I allow you to intentionally hurt me and I can't do it anymore" but what she heard was rejection and an ultimatum that I didn't love her/the band enough to stay unless they screwed over their career chose me instead AND that I rejected her friends she'd made in the country chick scene.
3) In her circles of friends, blocking someone is simply what you do for anyone whose comments upset you. Cancel culture and blocking people who upset you is a core principle of asserting you are a strong woman in "woke Nashville positive vibes only white chick" mentality. The fact it's mean girls "you can't sit at our table" middle school female bullying tactic isn't something that mentality acknowledges or even sees. She literally couldn't/can't even recognize or imagine blocking someone to be an act of bullying - to her and MOST of a specific type of white chick, it's an assertion of your own power and refusal to let someone bring down your positive vibes. They're wrong, it's still textbook relational bullying, but it's been rationalized and the ENTIRE subculture of this type of white chick promotes it as healthy boundary setting.
4) The only thing stronger than Britt's pride/refusal to admit she was wrong is her desire to be loved and appreciated for what she gets right and the good in her. Especially people she admires or wants to like her or matter to people she loves. The fact she can't and won't be able to get any affection or trust from me by persisting as if what she had done was right creates a direct conflict between these two sides of her nature. And it's a very real existential crisis for her puts her in a dark brooding spot of self loathing and wanting to blame me to try to break free of it rather than confront the cause. But her existential crisis torn between these two dominant motivating forces being in conflict is VERY real to her.
5) I want to repeat the very first one. She absolutely adores her brother, he makes ler list of top 5 people she loves most in the world. She WANTS him to be happy, wants it as much or more than her own happiness, and to think she did something to destroy that on him just guts her with guilt....
So yeah, she's also hurting from this. And honestly, I ought to have realized that sooner....
She's hurting over it, never expected my reactions to be what they are, and she doesn't know how to fix any of this.... And sometimes her hurt manifests in lashing out in anger wanting to hurt the person causing her heartache - and mostly that's me. But her hurt is as real as his and mine. Even when she expresses it via anger and lashing out - still that sabotaging things making it worse IS born from of her very real hurt....
And I think understanding and holding that facet of it steady inside me is important if there's any hope of healing things. It's also fair - to try to pretend it wasn't would be a lie and cruelty toward her....
rapprochement and healing starts with seeing the other person's side, trying to understand it, apologizing, and giving forgiveness as you hope to be forgiven for your own wrongs. And that's a page everyone needs to be on to get anywhere - I won't be the one who gets in the way of that process by lying to myself about Britt's place of hurt and rationalizing on this. 💖 I'd RATHER heal this than chuck it all in the fuck it bucket, set it afire, and walk away. I can't heal it by myself alone, but I'd rather heal it... If we can. If they'll help me to heal this.
P. S. Also. The insta live story disappearing after ending it - that wasn't on Britt and it wasn't her being intentionally extra exclusionary. I was wrong blaming that on her and I'm sorry and I feel terrible I felt so upset and hurt and defensive EXPECTING new hurts from her because that's what they've now spent a year conditioning me to expect that I fully believed that accusation. It was wrong of me and I'm sorry and I feel terrible about it....
That wasn't her. That's a change Instagram made and I simply haven't been on it enough recently to know that. ALL lives need to be watched as they're happening in real time, are no longer staying for 24 houra after they end for anyone who missed them. On every account. Short story clips are staying, lives are disappearing as soon as they end. And it's only in the last couple days, but when I've asked other users they started watching saw it was happening too. I've seen no articles on the change, I don't know if it's a permanent or temporary thing.... But I know it's true of insta live across all accounts right now.
And I genuinely feel like a shit person for blaming it on her and letting myself reach an internal point I could believe her capable of that intentional cruelty.... That was wrong of me toward her and I owe her an apology and to seek to make amends.... Even if she has no idea I reached that point, I still feel I owe her my apology for jumping to conclusions and blaming her for a wrong she never committed.... Not even unwittingly committed, she straight up had nothing to do with it, just the first I learned of this change came by secondhand news of her having gone live but there then being np live to watch later.
And I'm sorry and I feel horrid.... And I dunno how to tell her that without making more of a mess of things, especially if she doesn't even know I blamed her that way.... But I'm gonna start by checking myself and asking myself if I'm being fair to her or if I'm being biased as a result of all that accumulated in the last year. It's not enough, but it's where I'll start. Because any start to try to improve things is better than doing nothing. And this self reflection checking myself if I'm being fair or biased toward her is a small thing that IS entirely within my power to do to start making amends for so easily believing the fault and blame was something she did......
It's not an apology to her, and we both owe each other a score of apologies at this point. But it's something I can do from here forward to fix my own side of it and address my inner biases toward her that this last year created/affirmed. It's not enough, but it's what my exhausted 3am brain has right now. 💕
Britt is having a hard time over this, same as Eric, same as me.
1) She doesn't WANT to be what fucks things up for Eric, he's her brother and she loves him dearly and she wants him to be happy.
2) She was genuinely hurt by my response to pitchy vocalists, especially in the country scene. It felt like rejection and judgement of her - and that hurt her. I may have meant it as the facts, "this causes me physical pain and asking me to listen to it is demanding I allow you to intentionally hurt me and I can't do it anymore" but what she heard was rejection and an ultimatum that I didn't love her/the band enough to stay unless they screwed over their career chose me instead AND that I rejected her friends she'd made in the country chick scene.
3) In her circles of friends, blocking someone is simply what you do for anyone whose comments upset you. Cancel culture and blocking people who upset you is a core principle of asserting you are a strong woman in "woke Nashville positive vibes only white chick" mentality. The fact it's mean girls "you can't sit at our table" middle school female bullying tactic isn't something that mentality acknowledges or even sees. She literally couldn't/can't even recognize or imagine blocking someone to be an act of bullying - to her and MOST of a specific type of white chick, it's an assertion of your own power and refusal to let someone bring down your positive vibes. They're wrong, it's still textbook relational bullying, but it's been rationalized and the ENTIRE subculture of this type of white chick promotes it as healthy boundary setting.
4) The only thing stronger than Britt's pride/refusal to admit she was wrong is her desire to be loved and appreciated for what she gets right and the good in her. Especially people she admires or wants to like her or matter to people she loves. The fact she can't and won't be able to get any affection or trust from me by persisting as if what she had done was right creates a direct conflict between these two sides of her nature. And it's a very real existential crisis for her puts her in a dark brooding spot of self loathing and wanting to blame me to try to break free of it rather than confront the cause. But her existential crisis torn between these two dominant motivating forces being in conflict is VERY real to her.
5) I want to repeat the very first one. She absolutely adores her brother, he makes ler list of top 5 people she loves most in the world. She WANTS him to be happy, wants it as much or more than her own happiness, and to think she did something to destroy that on him just guts her with guilt....
So yeah, she's also hurting from this. And honestly, I ought to have realized that sooner....
She's hurting over it, never expected my reactions to be what they are, and she doesn't know how to fix any of this.... And sometimes her hurt manifests in lashing out in anger wanting to hurt the person causing her heartache - and mostly that's me. But her hurt is as real as his and mine. Even when she expresses it via anger and lashing out - still that sabotaging things making it worse IS born from of her very real hurt....
And I think understanding and holding that facet of it steady inside me is important if there's any hope of healing things. It's also fair - to try to pretend it wasn't would be a lie and cruelty toward her....
rapprochement and healing starts with seeing the other person's side, trying to understand it, apologizing, and giving forgiveness as you hope to be forgiven for your own wrongs. And that's a page everyone needs to be on to get anywhere - I won't be the one who gets in the way of that process by lying to myself about Britt's place of hurt and rationalizing on this. 💖 I'd RATHER heal this than chuck it all in the fuck it bucket, set it afire, and walk away. I can't heal it by myself alone, but I'd rather heal it... If we can. If they'll help me to heal this.
P. S. Also. The insta live story disappearing after ending it - that wasn't on Britt and it wasn't her being intentionally extra exclusionary. I was wrong blaming that on her and I'm sorry and I feel terrible I felt so upset and hurt and defensive EXPECTING new hurts from her because that's what they've now spent a year conditioning me to expect that I fully believed that accusation. It was wrong of me and I'm sorry and I feel terrible about it....
That wasn't her. That's a change Instagram made and I simply haven't been on it enough recently to know that. ALL lives need to be watched as they're happening in real time, are no longer staying for 24 houra after they end for anyone who missed them. On every account. Short story clips are staying, lives are disappearing as soon as they end. And it's only in the last couple days, but when I've asked other users they started watching saw it was happening too. I've seen no articles on the change, I don't know if it's a permanent or temporary thing.... But I know it's true of insta live across all accounts right now.
And I genuinely feel like a shit person for blaming it on her and letting myself reach an internal point I could believe her capable of that intentional cruelty.... That was wrong of me toward her and I owe her an apology and to seek to make amends.... Even if she has no idea I reached that point, I still feel I owe her my apology for jumping to conclusions and blaming her for a wrong she never committed.... Not even unwittingly committed, she straight up had nothing to do with it, just the first I learned of this change came by secondhand news of her having gone live but there then being np live to watch later.
And I'm sorry and I feel horrid.... And I dunno how to tell her that without making more of a mess of things, especially if she doesn't even know I blamed her that way.... But I'm gonna start by checking myself and asking myself if I'm being fair to her or if I'm being biased as a result of all that accumulated in the last year. It's not enough, but it's where I'll start. Because any start to try to improve things is better than doing nothing. And this self reflection checking myself if I'm being fair or biased toward her is a small thing that IS entirely within my power to do to start making amends for so easily believing the fault and blame was something she did......
It's not an apology to her, and we both owe each other a score of apologies at this point. But it's something I can do from here forward to fix my own side of it and address my inner biases toward her that this last year created/affirmed. It's not enough, but it's what my exhausted 3am brain has right now. 💕
Friday, October 4, 2019
O I don't blame him for being so upset - he's contributed his fair share of fuckups to getting us here same as me but he's been trying and fighting so fucking hard to fix where he went awry. And the current situation is none of his making though it is of his perpetuating. It was created by someone else, done in his name and in the name of everyone in the band making them all guilty of a cruelty they never intended or initially condoned - and since then he's been caught between his sister's boundless ego-driven pride and my inflexibility on matters of principle. And he'll continue to be stuck in the middle and everything he does will make things worse, and even if he does nothing his sister will continue in acts of intentional bullying cruelty that will destroy whatever progress he achieves, for as long as he's caught in the middle of two stubbornly unyielding wills. And unfortunately, I do not compromise on matters of justice or truth.... I'll seek common ground make peace on most things, but never on an issue of fairness/justice or speak the lie on a matter of honest truth.
So I don't blame him for the intensity of all his emotions right now....
And I don't want a lie from him. No matter how painful the truth is, I'll always prefer the truth. Even if he could lie to me about his inner state, and he can't no more than I could lie to him about mine anything he receives via the bond, I wouldn't want the lie. I want his truth, even when it's intense and he's full of a mess of emotions trying to drown him.....
I just don't have it in me to knowingly heap more hurt on him with what I hear from him reaching me.... If I could, if it were in my power, I'd heal it in him and make him all alight with joy and hope. If I knew how to do it, how to get there, that's the path I'd choose. But I don't know how to get him there from where he has been brought to.... But I do know that me doing something stupid impetuous leaving him to destroy his chances of fixing this would make it worse. So if I can't see how I can make him better, I'm going to choose not to make him worse.
So I don't blame him for the intensity of all his emotions right now....
And I don't want a lie from him. No matter how painful the truth is, I'll always prefer the truth. Even if he could lie to me about his inner state, and he can't no more than I could lie to him about mine anything he receives via the bond, I wouldn't want the lie. I want his truth, even when it's intense and he's full of a mess of emotions trying to drown him.....
I just don't have it in me to knowingly heap more hurt on him with what I hear from him reaching me.... If I could, if it were in my power, I'd heal it in him and make him all alight with joy and hope. If I knew how to do it, how to get there, that's the path I'd choose. But I don't know how to get him there from where he has been brought to.... But I do know that me doing something stupid impetuous leaving him to destroy his chances of fixing this would make it worse. So if I can't see how I can make him better, I'm going to choose not to make him worse.
The answer is, it may make me a fool, but I don't know how to cut Eric out of me. And I genuinely doubt I could wuthout causing irreparable harm to the both of us....
And sometimes, it's so hard hearing what's inside of him and feel it inside me as if it were my own hurts. And right now, he's hurting bad again and he's so anxious and sad and just.... Heartbroken over just how fucked up everything is and how far he is from what he wants and where he hoped to be right now.
And I just want to hug him when he's in this sort of state. (and he IS in quite the state right now...last day or so....) Whenever I feel that sadness and hurt and emptiness and yearning and fear in him, I just hold him til the hurting starts to heal and then ask him what it is needs fixing and how we're going to do it.
It makes me feel like I can't breathe and I'm going to drown choking on his emotions when they get the way they've been lately....
But even if I did know how to shut him out, I never could while he's this bereft inaide.... My reasons for trying to go are all about not believing he cares about me and feeling that things are just too complicated now this last year and I refuse to put him in the middle between me and people/things that he deeply cares about. But I still love him all the same and I want him to have and hold onto the happiness he seeks (even if I don't know what that is) and it kills me to feel him as gutted as he is - the last thing I coild do with him in that state is diminish the bond and the love/strength he can find from it.....
So I'll not be doing anything drastic or precipitous. Not at this time. Because he's currently hurting, and I couldn't do anything to make that worse or make it permanent for him.... I'm not a cruel person, despite my strict loyalty to justice and truth. And it's not in me to hurt him worse while he's already hurring so.
What I am gonna do now is keep listening to Penny & Sparrow, put the kettle on for a cuppa tea, eat some espresso sea salt alpine cheddar cheese, then go back to reading my book. (The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman. Hal told me I had to read it when I stole him and Crissy to go wandering Forest Hill cemetery to look at some flowering trees a few weeks ago when he randomly found me at Farmer's Market. When I got home, I discovered I already had it and it was on my tbr shelf right by my bed. Today it felt like what I wanted to read in one sitting.)
I do hope something shifts for Eric soon though. For his sake. He's suffering a lot again just now, poor love....
And sometimes, it's so hard hearing what's inside of him and feel it inside me as if it were my own hurts. And right now, he's hurting bad again and he's so anxious and sad and just.... Heartbroken over just how fucked up everything is and how far he is from what he wants and where he hoped to be right now.
And I just want to hug him when he's in this sort of state. (and he IS in quite the state right now...last day or so....) Whenever I feel that sadness and hurt and emptiness and yearning and fear in him, I just hold him til the hurting starts to heal and then ask him what it is needs fixing and how we're going to do it.
It makes me feel like I can't breathe and I'm going to drown choking on his emotions when they get the way they've been lately....
But even if I did know how to shut him out, I never could while he's this bereft inaide.... My reasons for trying to go are all about not believing he cares about me and feeling that things are just too complicated now this last year and I refuse to put him in the middle between me and people/things that he deeply cares about. But I still love him all the same and I want him to have and hold onto the happiness he seeks (even if I don't know what that is) and it kills me to feel him as gutted as he is - the last thing I coild do with him in that state is diminish the bond and the love/strength he can find from it.....
So I'll not be doing anything drastic or precipitous. Not at this time. Because he's currently hurting, and I couldn't do anything to make that worse or make it permanent for him.... I'm not a cruel person, despite my strict loyalty to justice and truth. And it's not in me to hurt him worse while he's already hurring so.
What I am gonna do now is keep listening to Penny & Sparrow, put the kettle on for a cuppa tea, eat some espresso sea salt alpine cheddar cheese, then go back to reading my book. (The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman. Hal told me I had to read it when I stole him and Crissy to go wandering Forest Hill cemetery to look at some flowering trees a few weeks ago when he randomly found me at Farmer's Market. When I got home, I discovered I already had it and it was on my tbr shelf right by my bed. Today it felt like what I wanted to read in one sitting.)
I do hope something shifts for Eric soon though. For his sake. He's suffering a lot again just now, poor love....
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