Staring at the ceiling in the dark, Same old empty feeling in your heart. Love comes slow and it goes so fast. Well you see her when you fall asleep, But never to touch and never to keep. 'Cause you loved her too much and you dive too deep. Well you only need the light when it's burning low. Only miss the sun when it starts to snow. Only know you love her when you let her go. Only know you've been high when you're feeling low. Only hate the road when you're missing home. Only know you love her when you let her go -- And you let her go.

No wait, let me lay this out linearly. Since what we really have are three distinct but causally linked problems (and their consequences) that have created this toxicity and pain to get mixed into all of this... And if I'm going to talk about causes and consequences, I should do so by laying it out logically.  It'll probably be a ridiculously long novella, but it's better to do it properly than partially.

~*~*~*~*~

Primary Problem: the country music decision

This is the root root cause. it's what really precipitated and created ALL of this mess.

1) The country music decision caused me physical pain. That's just simple fact of my synesthesia and how anything offkey or bending notes that traverse through offkey pitches causes me physical nerve pain.  I've never listened to country music as 99% of country artists have vocals that cause me physical pain and always have my entire life.  This isn't something that is EVER going to change with me (or with anyone with color-music synesthesia.) What goes on at a songwriting or instrumental level means nothing if the vocals cause me physical pain -- I can't hear any of the rest of it past the inescapable nerve pain it generates. Country vocalists WILL be physically painful to me, as will anyone who tries to emulate or graft on a country twang to their vocals EVEN IF their voice without the grafted on twang causes me no pain and it's a voice that I love without the grafted on pitchiness.
2) I have been nothing but honest about this pain it causes me from day 1.
3) Liz and Britt who then both handled social media responded to my pain by telling me that I needed to learn to be more tolerant or I'd miss out on good things. They never were capable of understanding that it's raw physical pain and there's nothing I could do about it. Instead, they were hurt, felt I didn't like them, and became defensive, hellbound on rationalizing a defense of the decision the band had made by signing to Valory/Big Machine. And so they engaged in bullying behaviors to try to make me follow where they insisted on leading. This was followed by a period of simply ignoring me saying, 'Sorry but this causes me physical pain and I can't support it or go along with it." They were hurt and they lashed out and they lacked compassion -- but it wasn't evil intent. Just egoblinded selfishness making them unable to see or acknowledge any pain but their own hurt over the rejection they were facing from me saying I couldn't and wouldn't go along with the "we're country now" decision due to that decision causing my physical pain.
4) This defensiveness led the girls to their solution for dealing with this problem on the social media and trying to hide it so nobody would see it: blocking me. This created the Secondary problem.

Now, before we move on to the secondary root of pain and hurt being mixed into the relationships between me and members of Delta Rae, let's talk about the current state of things.

Current state:
Most of the problems of the country music generating pain to my synesthesia HAVE been dealt with and this is no longer an ACTIVE source of poisons except when anyone in the band shares anything about country artists (including Taylor Swift, who I actively LOATHE and don't trust her version of ANY story ever since the whole her going on Ellen and claiming she was dumped in a 12 second phone call by Nick Jonas who refused to talk to her about it which is why she processed her feelings in songs and only YEARS later did she admit she'd intentionally tried to publicly hurt his reputation and that the ACTUAL truth was his version that, "yes we broke up over the phone, but we were on separate tours and wouldn't see each other in person for many months. And as for the 12 seconds? That's because she hung up on me and wouldn't answer my calls back to talk about it." So I don't trust ANY story she's trying to sell because she picks fights, intentionally tries to ruin careers out of spite, and spreads distorted unfair partial truths to make herself seem better than she is/was in the interactions.  Most of her narratives are proven false by time and thus she is someone who can't be trusted to tell you undistorted truths. and that makes her dangerous, especially with her many blindly sycophantic "Tay Tay can do no wrong" cult-like followers in the Swifties. I have felt this way about her for years, if you'd bothered to ask my opinion of her. )
Anyway. Now they're no longer on the country label, no longer trying to be forced to be country radio sound or playing at country music festivals or with bad country vocalists as openers, most of these poisons have been dealt with and are matters of the past not the present and future of who/what they are. And to give credit where credit is due, Adam HAS shifted the pre/post show playlists (at least for shows I'm at) and the painful country music is no longer a factor. He's done good,  EXTRAORDINARILY good, in the songs he's picked (subtext and all) and I genuinely have been really happy with all of his choices and the direction the pre-show music has been taken now they're no longer on the country label trying to pretend they are (or ever were) a "country band."  (except for the show in Stevens Point when the initial start of one bad country song made me get up from where I was sitting curled into a tree I liked and I had to run away due to the music -- and then was switched to all Dave Matthews Band all the time which was fine. Makes me think of DMB loving hippie exes, but I don't dislike DMB. Certainly doesn't cause my synesthesia any pain.)

This poison from the pain the country music was generating is mostly diffused and removed and not actively causing pain or making things worse outside solitary incidences of promoting or discussing country artists. I only bring it up as it's what created the ones that have brought us to where we are NOW and is actively the cause that CREATED the problems of blocking that are now close to destroying everything. The decision to be involved with the country music scene IS what created all of the pain as a point of genesis -- but it is NOT actively contributing to the current pain and hurts and the danger of it is mostly acknowledged and neutralized now and moving forward healing is happening.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Secondary Source of toxicity: Blocking.

The blocking is something initiated by and perpetuated by the girls in Delta Rae when the active mean girl style bullying instead of empathy didn't work nor did simply ignoring me hoping I'd stop speaking my truth or back down.  I have never blocked them anywhere -- in fact the only people I've EVER blocked on any social media platform are bots and strange men sending me unsolicited dick pics/hitting on me/demanding nudes. (that last category is now exclusively only a nuisance on my facebook and is why my twitter profile pic is Hipster Belle and my insta profile pic is of my dog wearing a crown from an old BarkBox.  Cartoons and dogs don't get unsolicited hitting on the way a picture of a girl does.) I philosophically disagree with the concept of blocking as self-care because it's bullying ostracism AND because I believe if you want ANY form of healing or moving on without repressing/burying things, then you need to actually communicate with the people the problems are happening with. You need to attempt communication or at least keep the line open to it. This is true in ALL cases, except for the healing for certain people of rape and abuse (physical, sexual, mental, and/or emotional) that requires removing the abuser entirely from their life so as not to be dominated by any fear or emotional responses to the abuser. but in EVERY case except for a very niche small number of rape/abuse cases that require professional discussion and removal of the abuser to begin any healing process, I maintain that true healing only happens in honesty and open dialogue and communication (even when that's difficult) rather than repression or burying or pretending it's not really a problem.  Because this is the truth I have consistently found necessary for REAL healing, I am against social media blocking as a means of shutting down all attempts at communication -- except for blovking in the cases of bots, trolls, unsolicited dicks, and serious clinical abuse.

So the blocking as a means of dealing with my pain from the country music and their pain from the rejection accusing them of causing me pain is NOT a concept that originated from me or I ever had any part of creating or perpetuating other than to be the victim of being blocked.

1) The blocking actually originated with Liz. On Instagram. back in May 2018, she posted an image of her in the red jacket quoting the Billy Joel lyric "Everyone's talking about the new sound, funny but it's still rock and roll to me." I responded to it that unfortunately, for people with color-music synesthesia like me, country vocalists just simply cause me physical pain so it's nothing at all the same or even rock and roll once you add country twang into the mix. Being sick of dealing with me saying the same thing over and over, Liz blocked me from her personal instagram page.

So this idea/solution all STARTED with Liz -- though as it was on her personal page not the band page thus it only represented her. And as such I took it at its face value, accepted that she had no desire to have me in her life or any connection to me and as a consequence since May 2018 I can't give Liz anything but politely distant surface friendliness and nothing more since anything else from me is to deny her boundaries she imposed of what SHE chose for herself as her desired mode of interaction and relationship with me.

2) Following the release of Hands Dirty in October 2018 (but prior to the email sharing her personal story) Britt had posted the video on her personal instagram account. And I quite excitedly exclaimed about how much I loved the song and the message and the sound of it and how great the video was (all of which was in my public facebook post share of the video as well) and then said in my instagram response that my only sadness about the song was that I wouldn't ever get to see it live as I couldn't attend any further shows where the country music caused me pain since the country music before their set even started had brought me to a place where the pain outweighed the joy I could get from being there.

That's when Britt blocked me on her own personal account. That hurt worse than when Liz did it  , because as Eric's sister, respecting her desire I not be in her life was requiring coming to terms with what that meant about being in Eric's life or having him in my life since she IS his sister and that relationship predates anything between him and me within this life. So it was complicated and I was having a hard time deciding what the proper way to respect her choice without punishing Eric....

I SHOULD say here, neither Liz nor Britt will ever get anything but distant cool polite friendliness from me as long as they have a boundary that THEY have put in place that demands I not be any part of their life. Them blocking me on personal accounts is personal matter of personal boundaries and a different thing from the band account blocking me. But a result of it is I will forever and always respect the boundary between us that THEY introduced as long as it's there and they will never be able to reach me past that cool polite facade to feel any warmth of friendship or love from me. Not as long as they have a boundary that asks me to respect that they don't want me to even know anything about their lives or having any part of it.  Even if a decision is made to address and fix what went wrong between me and the band, the girls will never get the warmth of my friendship or love so long as they have me blocked on their personal accounts -- there is nothing else they can do to break that wall in my eyes. That wall of coolly distant politeness is me respecting the boundaries they created and refusing to transgress past that in any fashion.

3) In response to a video shared on the BAND account of Delta Rae for Hands Dirty, I said the same thing about loving the song/single but the country music keeping me from attending future Delta Rae shows so I'd never hear the song live, especially now that Brittany had blocked me on her account for saying that truth about the country music and now that day I couldn't even listen to Morning Comes or All Good People on that day I needed it most trying to grapple with my emotions about the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting the night before. (I AM at fault adding that last bit publicly about her blocking me so i couldn't even listen to the recorded songs I loved and needed that day -- that's dirty laundry that a bit of reflection not being an emotional wreck would have had me edit out. But I WAS an emotional wreck that day due to the shooting so I never even thought about whether I ought to say publicly about a private interaction -- and it was all  mixed in as a part of my truth and my pain that day I said it.)   I was blocked on the band official instagram within 15 minutes of my comment (which I'd have deleted later anyway realizing I'd said too much truths publicly) and it was 5mins before I had to leave to go to an inter-faith event at a Unitarian church designed by Frank Lloyd Wright here in Madison -- a place to be together in grieving and community solutions to fight racism and gun violence.  Nobody deleted my post or reached out to me to ask me not to say anything except positives publicly. Not at any point. I was just blocked immediately and without any responses or telling me why or contacting me.

I was more angry than hurt that time because I was already in so much pain feeling so alone after the largest act of anti-semitism in the US and how that made me feel as a Jewish woman.  So I said, "fuck it, fuck them all if that's who they choose to be officially as a band -- I'm going where there's community and healing and support and other people also in the eye of racist gun violence and we can be together to work on this issue. Who needs their fucking song to help with all this pain if they're hypocrites like this anyway!"

I did try cutting all ties and shutting out Eric from reaching me via the bond by unfollowing everywhere and blocking out the bond. And i was successful, despite how tiring it was to keep him from reaching me via the bond, til April when Eric broke through to reach me via the bond and I realized I was unfair to punish the boys for what the girls had done in the name of the band -- especially without him or any of them knowing why.  So I decided to reopen contacts and give them a chance. So I refollowed his personal account and dmed him (privately)  to tell him everything that had happened, to at least give him the truth. (and this will bring us to the third poison causing toxicity in these relationships.)

Current State:
I remain blocked on the band account, officially. The girls personal pages don't bother me, that's about them individually and I don't need to be more than politely distant with them if that's what they desire. But the band one DOES eat at me, and it affects my ability to listen to their music or attend their shows moving forward EVEN WITH THEM GOING INDEPENDENT and returning to their own identity and making music I would love if I could listen to it without all this baggage from the choice made a year ago mixed in. But I won't be able to listen to it, not ever, as long as I'm blocked on the official band account.

And that will bring us to the problems of the third source of pain/toxicity, which is part of the being blocked and can't be addressed or dealt with except by choosing to face and deal with the second....

 ~*~*~*~*~*~

Third source of toxicity/pain in these relationships: Complicity in being part of an unfair system created by ostracism. (Conscious or unconscious complicity)

Prior to me opening up to Eric that I had been blocked on the band account and how it had happened as far as my knowledge goes,  this third source of pain/toxicity didn't exist. Because before me dming him, the ONLY people who knew I had been blocked on the band account were: 1) Me 2) Whoever blocked me and 3) Crissy because I had to talk to someone and help her understand why i just couldn't stand to do anything further or even consider coming late and sticking it out through the pain of the country music to see them at their November 2018 show in Madison, at The Majestic. And I suppose 4) Anyone that was told from whoever blocked me that I had been blocked -- that's a list of persons I don't know.... But to my knowledge, only three people knew.  I didn't talk about it, publicly OR privately, with anyone else.

After I told Eric, however, he then KNEW about the system of ostracism that the band account had become. Before knowing that, he wasn't guilty of any wrong he knew himself to be doing. But after I told him, it made his every post on the band account OR sharing content from the band account an act of perpetuating inequality and ostracism. It made him guilty of being a part of the system once he knew of the system's existence.

When he decided to go live on the band's Instagram at the very end of the Kickstarter (which I had supported and been incredibly excited about right up until he did this) and he posted about it on every OTHER social media platform for people to come to the band's instagram account to join in -- he became complicit in being a part of the system of ostracism. Being a part of the system of ACTIVE "everyone come join us except for you."  Before, his complicity was akin to living in a slaveholding society and reaping the benefits of cheaper food/clothing but AFTER he knew of the system of ostracism AND chose to deliberately engage in an act of bullying via ostracism he became akin to an actual slaveholder. He didn't create the system of inequality, but he chose to be party to it and complicit in acting on it. 

At the time of the posts on facebook and twitter that ERIC was going live on the band's instagram account to celebrate with fans (in the end it was Eric with Brittany and Jessie all three of them together) I PUBLICLY responded and reminded him/them that I had been blocked for saying the country music caused me pain and so to hold this on the Instagram platform where fans had been blocked for stating their dislike of country music was unfair and a form of ostracism. I also dmed him reminding him of this.

He KNOWINGLY AND CONSCIOUSLY chose to go forward with the planned livestream on the band's Instagram.

And that made him complicit along with his sister of behaving in this system of inequality as an active member in full participation of the ostracism and bullying -- akin to buying a slave becoming a slaveholder himself in my earlier analogy of layers of guilt in participating in systems of inequality.

He was further complicit by choosing NEVER TO RESPOND or even acknowledge me publicly or privately on this issue. Nobody from the band has ever responded to my comments about this, not on Twitter nor on Facebook (though they DID respond to other people's comments on the same posts.) This is what made me stop commenting or liking ANYTHING to do with the band whatsoever -- except for the video with Ian and Leo. because they're both innocent of anything to do with this issue and these principles and it was adorbs. So instead of acknowledging or responding, they let me be attacked and victim blamed by OTHER fans/diehards telling me that I must have been rude not honest and he/they decided to double down on it go live on the band instagram account a SECOND TIME with Britt and Jessie and everyone else teleconferencing in at the end of the kickstarter and posting on all other forms of social media that Eric was going live on the band's instagram account.

This choice to have Eric INTENTIONALLY AND KNOWINGLY participate in a system of ostracism and bullying and for him to KNOWINGLY be the face representing this unfairness and cruelty and for him to make conscious choices to cause me pain has actually poisoned for me EVERYTHING related to the kickstarter and everything that will come out of the kickstarter....  Because now every time it's ever mentioned or I even hear the word or see it as the subject line of the email updates, I think of the fact they went live on the band instagram account for that countdown and publicly proclaimed it as "Eric is going live on the band instagram" for a SECOND TIME after being told "this is an unfair thing to do for the fans that were blocked for telling you they didn't like the country music and found it painful."  Nobody can mention that Kickstarter now without causing me pain and putting poisons in me that derive SOLELY from this event and the circumstances of it.... Nobody can bring it up without causing me this pain. And that's a thing of the past that CAN'T be fixed. You can refrain from doing more damage or doing the same wrongs -- but you can't stop me from hurting over the damage you already did or me being forced to remember it happening every time the word kickstarter comes up if that wrong you did and were a part of..... You poisoned EVERYTHING about the Kickstarter for me by these acts and by making yourself complicit in a system of inequality and bullying ostracism and doing nothing to even acknowledge or right it once you knew and it was brought to your attention.   The Kickstarter can never be made a thing of good and light now with me, it will always be a source of darkness and pain and poison. And all because of the decision to go live on the band instagram account while having me blocked on it and not even acknowledging the inequity of this and why it's wrong and a source of bullying via ostracism.

His third use of instagram live was him at the piano, just him with nobody else also complicit in it, the sort of live he used to do on his own personal account but done on the band account where anyone blocked on the band account (including me) couldn't see it.

This was a final straw of hurt and betrayal and of him, and him alone, KNOWINGLY doing cruel things to hurt me.  This is something broken that only he can fix and that's going to take time and effort. I can't help loving him and not wanting him to hurt -- I always will love him incandescently and completely and unable to help myself. But it's going to take a lot for me to trust him or believe he wouldn't intentionally do things he knows cause me pain or are doing wrong by me.  It's going to take a lot of time and effort for me to NOT have the wariness waiting for him betray me and intentionally do something cruel to me, I may smile and light up with my love for him and find joy in seeing his joy in having that back -- but even in Chicago there was still a part of me inside wary like a dog who's been beaten/kicked that he might lash out and decide to hurt me again..... That's in there now in this life due to HIS actions and HIS choices to knowingly be a part of this system of ostracism by going live on the band's instagram account while allowing me to continue to be blocked on that account. This is a darkness and poison  mixed in through all the love and light and it can't be unmixed now. This is something he did and it can't be forgotten -- it can be forgiven, but not forgotten and it will take consistency and effort to show me that he's not going to be guilty of anything like that or of knowingly choosing to hurt me in the future. It's broken trust and that is a fucking long hard thing to fix..... Not impossible, but a damn lot of work on the part of the person who broke the trust.

And it was him doing that and the conclusions I drew from it that made me say, "There is nothing here I am holding onto. I can't listen to the old songs without feeling hurt and grief. I have no desire to listen to the new songs because they'll just make me feel hurt and grief for the same reasons. And there's nothing there that can be created that would be good between Eric and me without him putting in the effort to regain my trust that I just don't see any reason to expect he would. So what good is this attachment now bringing me?" And I found nothing good in what any connection to Delta rae and Eric were giving me following him going live on the band's instagram end of August and early September -- everything involving him was converted to pain and poisons for me by him doing that. Even just seeing him or looking at him hurt -- that's why I couldn't bring myself to even look at him in Ann Arbor. It just hurt inside me in a way that I felt like I couldn't breathe if I looked at him that he had behaved that way and been party to it knowingly and of his own free will.  I had the tickets I bought in July when I knew if I didn't buy them while the kickstarter was all excitement and good things, I wouldn't go to the November shows and that I needed to for larger karmic reasons of fairness and personal choices and responsibility taking and for ANY chances of a future healing things this life.

Current situation:
This is why I decided that after these shows I was going to end me being a fan of Delta Rae because it had been over a year of the system of ostracism being unaddressed and even publicly calling out the truth had done nothing to alter this.
And it's why I decided that I NEED to put the inner karmic and empath bond between Eric and me to sleep in order to do this in a way that is fair to everyone. So we don't emotionally bleed into each other and not know where our own inner borders of selfhood are -- because I can't have anything good with him if the sort of man he chose to be in late August and early September is who he will choose to continue to be AND I can't build anything good or fair with another man so long as I have this deep bond inside me tugging at me and pulling me ever toward Eric like a magnet.   Which means that for me to be happy and fair in giving my love whole-heartedly with anyone other than me being with Eric, I need to put the bond to Eric asleep. I had chosen the full moon on All Hallows for putting the bond to sleep as a time of deep potent magic and with the veil so thin a time easier for me or me with assistance from the fairfolk or the Goddess to accomplish it. I now realize it would have been unfair for me to put the bond to sleep before him having a a chance to try to make right with me what he did wrong by me with going live for the end of the Kickstarter on the account I was blocked on.... but even after how much incandescent joy and how powerful it all was in Chicago and for most of the Minneapolis show feeling like how it was before all this mess of the last three years, the real issues haven't been faced and nothing done to work on healing them. So without those changes, I still intend to put the bond with Eric to sleep and sever ties with the band and all of its members if none of this is fixed and I see no progress or reason to start rebuilding faith in Eric's goodness and affection for me being enough to at least not want to intentionally hurt me. My current plan is to do this during the waning moon of the solstice at the new moon just after the Winter Solstice. the 26th of Dec I believe.  It is past the time of me seeing them  this last weekend to give opportunities and open acknowledgement of how it was versus how it is versus how it could be if this were healed. And I will have given him 4 months to try to make a start on making right where he fucked up with me and all the pain it introduced into what had before only been joy and light....

This third situation can be worked on the trust issues and such without dealing with the second -- but only if he ceases to do things that are a reminder and poison of the second continuing to be an issue. And, on a purely practical note, I don't see how he can do that without 1) solving the second one 2) choosing not to share anything on his personal from the band or to be any part of anything shared on the band account or 3) find some other way I can't think of to make it so the issues with the band being a source of poisons due to someone deciding to block me on that account can be kept separate from anything between him and me. And those last 2 seem impossible to do as far as I can see. So realistically, I don't know how much traction he can get on trying to repair things and earn my trust in him and faith he won't knowingly do things that are cruel to me WITHOUT solving the issues created by me having been blocked on the official band account in teh first place....


~*~*~*~*~*~

The first is only an issue if they bring that country music thing back -- it's not currently a problem at all except for having created the ACTIVE problems.

It's really the second combined with the third is the final straw for me and why I reached the decision after the August/September Eric going live on the band instagram account that all I can do is to leave because I can't heal this on my own return it to something bright instead of something toxic, I lack the capacities to do so. And so I just need to walk away as the healthiest thing for everyone involved..... Now that the shows I bought tickets to in July are done, I need to bring myslef to the point of accepting I cut all ties I have opened to Delta Rae AND from allowing or even hoping for anything with Eric -- including putting that inner bond to sleep so we cannot reach each other or hear each other's feelings or make sure the other can feel the comfort of our love for them that way. Not block them, just cease to follow them to give them an easy way in to reach me.  And after what happened at the end of the Minneapolis show and what that showed me about how toxic it all now is and how fragile the healing is with THIS amount of poisons in it before adding any more AND how much pain there is that can't be healed by me alone because i can't do what needs to be done to start the healing of it, I stand by that assessment that I do have to leave this situation since it can only cause pain and never anything else without healing these toxicities. And I don't want to be a source of pain -- not to Eric, not to any of them. And it's not FAIR for me to suffer or for my suffering to cause them distress and harm.

 I also will have to unfollow even the boys personal accounts, who again have done NOTHING WRONG other than not correcting a wrong once they knew about it, for my own sanity and self-care to stop the pain this state of affairs and the unfairness and unethical bullying of it.  Even tonight, they caused me further hurt when Eric, Mike, and Grant ALL shared the post that is available on facebook stories since they linked the two accounts (where I can see it and know it's in the font Eric uses and is a video from Chicago that says thank you for the weekend) because now EVERY time I go to my instagram, I see the color circle of an unwatched story and when I click it there's nothing new there so I KNOW that there's an unwatched story that simply doesn't exist to me because it includes the account that has me blocked. And I will not be able to watch that unwatched story (or any like it of videos/posts on the band insta account -- you can confirm this yourself that I have not ever watched ANYTHING shared from content on the official Delta Rae band account on Instagram when you share it if you go in to see who has watched your stories) for as long as I am blocked on the initial account whose content you're trying to share. And that's true for ANYONE blocked by another account.... I can watch OTHER things you share from other people (even if the band is tagged in it) to the personal accounts -- but I can't watch any stories that share content from any account who has me blocked. (Which for those keeping score would be you sharing any content from Liz, Brittany, or the official band account -- all three having blocked me for me having been honest that the country music was causing me enough physical pain to stop me attending Delta Rae concerts in the future or listening to their music if they continued to take it in a country radio direction.)

It looks like this, red circle of unwatched stories,  but click on it and there's only the 4 stories already watched:

And that is a problem of constantly reminding me of the block and the ostracism even though I KNOW that they can't possibly mean to be cruelly rubbing salt in the wound. But they are and it causes me ACTIVE poisoning toward the band and pain over all of this that they shared it and I can't see it but I can still KNOW that they shared the post I cant see from the band. That hurts and puts poisons into me even now tonight. Tonight and EVERY time I check my instagram for the 24 hours that story I can't watch is in their stories. I can't help the way it hurts and the poison jabs into me from it. Even if their intention is that in sharing it, then they can make sure EVERYONE sees it, that good intention creates poisons because of the blocking on the account that happened last year.

And anyway, setting the pain it causes me aside, it's not RIGHT or FAIR to expect them not to share the content from their band's account. It's their band -- it's their life and their career and their creative outlets and their baby. They SHOULD be sharing things about and from the band account, they should be able to be proud of their work and to share that pride of it.  I think they should be doing that -- just because I can't see it so I feel pain poisoning me coming from the boys sharing the band's content doesn't mean I can't simultaneously acknowledge that the boys OUGHT TO be sharing that content to their personal accounts and to be proud of what the band does.

Which is why for me to remove the poisons from causing me further damage using only what I am able to do by myself, sometime I'm going to have to unfollow all of the guys, everywhere, not just unfollow the band accounts on Twitter and Facebook (where I am not blocked and still follow the pages.)  If you only remove part of what's causing the blood poisoning, it'll still do damage to you eventually kill you while the blood poisoning infection spreads. You have to get all the infection, all the sources of breeding new poison, removed when you perform that amputation. And the fact I can see those circles and KNOW what that means but am still blocked on the band page means that me following any of the guys is toxic to me as well at this point due to me being blocked on the official band account. (I repeat, the guys are ACTIVELY DOING NOTHING WRONG other than letting a wrong done last year continue to create a system of ostracism they are complicit in by sharing content that is blocked to anyone blocked on that account)

That's how, as clearly and honestly as I can explain it, we have got to the point we are at. And why I  concluded based on all the information I have that the healthiest thing for me AND Eric AND everyone in the band at this point is that since I can't heal the problem without communication and someone dealing with the second (and thus third) source poisoning this, all i can do is admit defeat and cut ties and leave and have nothing further to do with the band or any member of it.

Which is where I was at BEFORE these recent shows, and where I am once more after the way the Minneapolis show ended and how that showed me how deep and raw and unhealed the pain and grief in me still is.  It's too much to move forward as if nothing is wrong, and it can't be buried and ignored as that will just make the pain fester worse. it either needs to be dealt with openly and honestly and the sources of poison removed -- or I need to do the only thing I can to stop it from breeding even more poisons and that is to remove any/all opportunities for experiencing old hurts or new hurts from these poisons. And I do that by me leaving and walking away and severing points of contact. Not blocking, they could reach out to me and dm me at any time, but simply removing the open lines of communication I created and maintain in choosing to follow their accounts.

Without working on healing all the pain and poison here making this toxic when it never needed to be and where everything should have been so easy, me leaving is the only thing i can do to mitigate making things worse than they already are..... Because we're at a point that even the band members sharing content from the band account is causing me pain. Not because I can see those stories, but because I can see the circles of the unwatched stories around their profile pictures but then the stories don't exist for me because the source content is something I'm blocked from seeing and thus doesn't exist to me. And that's not fair to anyone.... especially right now when they should be excited  and proud about everything they're doing as a band now they once more have creative control of their own art... To make them feel anything but confidence and pride in what they're doing is complete shit right now -- but because of mistakes made in the past never addressed or fixed, I just can't give them the love and support and excitement they deserve and that I WANT to give them for the new chapter and the new music in the pipeline -- all of which they'd absolutely have in a strength absolutely intoxicatingly overwhelming giddiness over it without any of this poisonous toxicity from me being blocked and the consequences of that choice and actions defending that original decision to block me for being honest about pain their older choices had caused me.

It's why me leaving and no longer seeing any of what they do in the future IS the kindest thing I can come up with that i can do right now with the cards that I personally hold. Because I can't do any of the actual healing that is required to make this good and bright and easy as it should be once again. And I can't do any of the healing that's needed because I can't unblock my account or force people to communicate with me if they don't choose to.

If you have a better answer, I'm willing to listen and I want to help -- I WANT a better answer than this. I don't WANT to let go or leave. It's just the best solution of what I can do on my own to stop teh pain/grief from getting worse with what has happened and where things are now.

~*~*~*~*~*~

That's it. that's as full and complete and logically laid out as I can accomplish of how we got to where we are, my assessment of where we are, and my plan moving forward given what I have to work with and what I expect based on a year's worth of data from Delta Rae generally and Eric specifically. And extrapolating from that data my expectation of what I feel I HAVE to do if nobody decides to work with me on healing this and do the things that I can't do to start repairing what got broken and teaching me that I can start to trust in the goodness again and not the falling away from that which has created all these poisons that have made everything so toxic and continue to make it ever more toxic for as long as they're not removed. So we all stop making things worse, accidentally worse as well as intentionally worse, and we only have the accumulated hurts to heal up...... 'Only."

it's not impossible to heal things and make them good. I just need to be honest with myself that I can't do it on my own. And I lack the power in this relationship, as the victim of me being blocked rather than the account that did the blocking, to do what needs to be done to even begin a process of healing and moving forward in any meaningful or healthy way.  My only agency without help on this is that I cut ties and leave. And my assessment is that me leaving  and putting to sleep the inner bond with Eric is the only way to stop the poisons from spreading and getting worse if nobody will help me remove them at the source so we at least don't keep poisoning the present and future from the mistakes of the past.....

[Post Title: Lyrics to the Passenger song Let Her Go. I've always love this song. Though ever since the precogs when I saw all this coming, it's made me sad. And the thing with precogs is, just because I get started on coping with the pain ahead of time doesn't lessen the pain I feel. I just started feeling all the rawness and coming to terms with all of this and how much it hurts and how much every option I have just hurts here nearly four years ago now.... But i don't see anything I could have done differently once they made the choice "we're a country band now" and signed contracts forcing them to do things that could only ever cause me pain due to my synesthesia. Except to have lied, I could have lied to them. And that would have made me guilty of a great betrayal and sowing poisons into the relationship by putting the lies and betrayals into it....]

I'm willing to believe that the INTENTION of Britt wasn't to break everything,  that the intent was, "just follow us and I'm the one who does this so I'll make sure I interact with you positively."  And I'm choosing to believe that because my general philosophy of people is that most of the hurtful things people do are accidents-- accidents due to not realizing consequences, or an ego blinder driven lack of empathy/awareness of how your actions affect others, or strong emotions making people volatile so they're unpredictable and/or lash out.

I'm willing to believe there was no ill intent - but my beliefs and the intentions of others don't change the facts.  They don't change the fact that someone blocked me. They don't change the fact that the account doesn't exist and cannot even be seen/found by me unless/until someone on the account unblocks me.  They don't change the fact that blocking ANY fan on the official band account then posting things ONLY on that account created a system of ostracism. It doesn't change the fact that the ostracism made anyone going live or posting to the band instagram account guilty of being party to it.  They don't change the fact that telling people to find you on instagram or posting other platforms you'll go live on instagram IS relational bullying once you have established a system of ostracism by blocking people.  They don't change the fact that when told "hey, I was blocked so I can't even be a part of this though I'd like to" you never acknowledged or responded,  just gaslit the situation pretending if you ignored it then it wouldn't be true.

And my beliefs and intentions don't alter the facts of the damage done as a consequence of this past action that was never addressed or fixed by anyone with the ability to do something about it.

My beliefs about the intentions behind those comments don't alter the facts about how blocking works or how someone who's blocked will respond to being told to find the account that blocked them and thus doesn't exist they can't see anything from.  Blocking IS bullying,  not self care,  in all instances except bots and trolls.  And there's nothing but lying to yourself and others and being guilty of cruelty and bullying to whoever you blocked in any other rationalizing of it.It's no different than a kid's birthday party that everyone is invited to but one person but then you talk about it in front of that kid to make sure they know how fun it is and they're not invited. That is PRECISELY the sort of relational bullying that Liz, Brittany, and now Eric have made themselves guilty of because of this.

And there's literally NOTHING that the victim of being blocked can do to try to understand why or open up lines of communication for as long as your account has them blocked. They can only accept that you don't want them in your life,  don't want to be friends or even acquaintances (even complete strangers who don't follow you but view your posts/profile have more access to you than an account you've blocked) and that what the blocker wants is for the person they blocked to not exist in their life.

And there's literally nothing I can do from my side to fix any of this. I tried telling you,  and you ignored it. And then compounded things made them worse.  The only fixing or healing starts with acknowledging and fixing what happened last year.  And it can't be done by the victim of social media bullying,  by the person who was blocked, it must be fixed by the account that did the blocking and by the person(s) guilty of cruelty - even if it was accidental cruelty,  it doesn't make the results of the past action(s) any less cruel.

I'm willing to believe there wasn't malicious intent in telling someone you blocked to find an account that literally doesn't exist to them - but that doesn't change the consequences of the past actions that brought us to this point and it certainly doesn't alter the way I reacted or the further hurts that trying to shift the responsibility like that have now piled onto this dynamic....

*shrugs* And it sure as hell doesn't change the hurting anyone is feeling over this situation.  You want to start healing everyone's pain,  then start by dealing with the root cause.  Start by going to the blocked list,  unblocking,  and acknowledging that this all HAPPENED (even if it was a mistake,  you can't fix the mistake without acknowledging and admitting it happened) and move forward so as not to be constantly creating new problems from the consequences of the one that happened last year.
That's the only way this even starts down a path of healing instead of me walking away and everyone weighed down with hurt,  sorrow, anger,  and regrets.  And unfortunately, none of what needs to be done to even begin the process of healing is within my abilities to do.  My choices are to accept remaining in this toxic situation or to leave it.  The choices that allow for healing the relationships and purging out the poisons are all in the hands of other people,  the people who are able to change the current power dynamics by dealing with the sins of the past actions. It is quite literally out of my hands as the victim of the blocking that created the system pf ostracism to do anything to begin to fix this.  And it's why my choice after a year of refusal to even acknowledge the facts of what happened by those who can fix it, since they're the ones with access to the blocked list and thus the ones who control the line of communication as well as the reins of the bullying behaviors itself,  that it's necessary for me to do the ONLY thing in my power to do in this toxic situation - and that is to sever all ties to everyone involved in it and for me to leave.  No matter how much it hurts me and everyone  about me leaving and the levels of unhealed pain/grief this has created,  it's the only thing left I can do not to create continuous toxicity and add to pain of hanging onto this relationship with the ostracism and bullying that the decision to block me (or any fan)  created....

Beliefs and intentions matter less here than facts, actions,  consequences of those actions,  and acknowledging the pain of these consequences for everyone.  And it's why if anyone other than this healer wants to heal this instead of giving up in defeat,  the only actions of healing have to be done by someone with access to the blocked accounts list on the Delta Rae instagram account.  Someone who can acknowledge and dig out the root cause of all this poison that's infected every part of this set of relationships and can only continue to poison any further interactions if it remains there poisoning everything no matter how good the intentions.

As a very old soul who is as much a healer as a fighter,  I can tell you what must be done to heal this.  But knowing what must be done and having the capacity to do it are two different things. And I can't heal this on my own - I can't do what NEEDS to be done to even begin the process.... Which is why since late August,  since Eric hopped aboard Britt's denial and relational bullying train,  I have been forcing myself to acknowledge as truth my defeat and the necessity of me leaving since nobody with the capacity to heal this exhibits any DESIRE to heal it or to even acknowledge there's things here that require healing and requiring removing poisonous mistakes of the past to render them harmless to make future poisons. Being a healer means knowing what must be done to heal souls and their interactions - it isn't the same as having the tools or role in the relationship needed to do it. And that's a humbling hard place to be in when it's your nature to wish to heal pain and suffering as well as to fight what is ethically wrong - and you've spent millenia studying both and honing your abilities.  There will still always be times that healing requires the actions and free will choices of other people or it can't be done.  And this is one of them.

Home.  Waiting for my Sunset in Seattle tea to cool enough not to scald my mouth so the chamomile in it will knock me out to get some sleep.

*sigh*

So MOST of tonight was absolutely dream like amazingly wonderful. I had decided to ride the wave of letting them in enough to find joy listening to Delta Rae songs again after the Chicago show. I figured that if things were on their way to better than no need for my overthinking to cloud the night and if things weren't going to get better then I'd rather a brilliantly good loving memory as my farewell to them show.....  So I had a mix of all their music on for the entire drive up to Minneapolis.  Loved the concert, mostly.

Had absolutely wonderful people around me EXCEPT Jessie's friends right behind us and our nearby concerting friends who were obnoxiously talking throughout EVERY song of Liz Longley's set,  loud enough for us to hear every word about their appointments and dating life, until I politely told them we could all hear every word of it distinctly and weren't trying to eavesdrop since we'd rather hear her songs but the acoustics of where they stood made it impossible for us not to know every detail. After that,  the tall brunette said,  "Ugh.  Doesn't she know who I am?  I'm a friend of Jessie after all." as if that should give her the right to talk during an artist's songs.  (actually EVERY friend of Jessie I've ever encountered in a crowd has used that justification for noisily talking during the songs in response to me asking them not to talk during the music or if they want to talk could they please do so at the bar.) This was BEFORE they started taking selfies with the flash on - intentionally having turned the flash on because otherwise it was too dark during Liz's set for selfies.... They were typical of my experience as an audience member of being near Jessie's obnoxious friends - this was the 4th time encountering some of Jessie's friends  of the 10 Delta Rae shows I went to this year.....

Anyway,  that was annoying,  but they shoved through to try to be in the front with a chain of half dozen humans behind them,  including Grant's girlfriend was grabbed onto at the end of the chain - though she had the decency to turn back and apologize to the people the two who'd been obnoxiously rude right behind me had shoved aside to move forward.  So at least I didn't have to hear those two talking all through Delta Rae.....

As for the show.most of it was delightful - I was genuinely enjoying myself dancing and singing and grinning and beaming my love.

That is.  I was until Eric started in on the kickstarter spiel and I felt the tremors of distrust and distance start in me...  I think he felt them coming from me too because he suddenly stopped and looked at me confused. At which point Britt hopped on the mic said,  "Remind them to find us on Instagram." and he said,  "I was getting to that."

See,  at each of these three shows,  they've been plugging their instagram - to find them and follow them on instagram to keep up on what they're up to.  No other socials,  just instagram - y'know,  the one someone blocked me on.  And at each of the shows,  my reaction has been to think,  "Yeah I did,  but now you blocked me I can't." and retreat into myself disconnect from everyone onstage at the relational bullying of bringing ONLY Instagram up.... Because that's what it is,  a reminder of the ostracism to everyone who was blocked (including me.)  Because to me,  being blocked,  that page literally doesn't show up nor does anything shared from it.  I KNOW every time Eric,  Mike,  or Grant try to share from the band's insta because their stories show up with the colored circle of an unwatched story,  but if I click on it nothing plays.  And if it's in the middle of other stories they post,  it just doesn't show up and I'll have 5 stories where Crissy's account has 6. On top of that,  everywhere anyone tags or links to it,  just shows up as text to me.... Such as on Mike and Grant's profiles:

So yeah,  let ME find you on Instagram after you've blocked me..... That definitely works.... Thanks for repeatedly telling me that's how to fix it and making Eric be the one to say it so you force even more artificial distance between us....

Anyway,  her response was to say,  "Yeah.  Sure you were." and then go on and on about how  these last two months have been a celebration (also the time since Eric aided in the bullying and I got so hurt and decided the only thing I could do about that was to sever all ties to him including the inner bond) she's the one who does all of it and she recognizes and knows people by name and never forgets anyone or any interaction etc etc.  And somewhere in her continuous relational bullying of,  "I want to be friends with all of you,  except the people I blocked and yes I knew it was you when I did it" speech I just felt everything break inside me....  All my fragile hope and faith there was a better answer on the horizon than me leaving,  all my incandescent joy and love for the music and these particular humans and what they're doing artistically - all of that just shattered as she continued poking the bear with her relational bullying.  And then it was gone and I was right back in the same place of hurt and sorrow and defeatist "the only thing left I can do to not be feeling these things is leave the situation of intentional ostracism and walk away from this bullying and everyone who is a part of it" and pulling myself in tight not to let any of my love reach them or their overtures reach me because doing so would be knowingly opening up pathways to be hurt worse.   Eric,  Ian,  and Liz all felt it immediately and it visibly gutted them watching all that light and love vanish and me go back to wound up tight/tense, unsmiling, not dancing, singing along mechanically.  I couldn't see Mike or Grant or Ellen, so I don't know if they realized.  But I saw the different ways it gutted Eric,  Ian,  and Liz.  But by then it was too late to fix with words about how much you love everyone there (subtext: except those of you I intentionally blocked) or catching my eye and trying to reassure me and reach me and get even a partial smile.  When they realized not even Dance in the Graveyards could break through the damage that adding more relational bullying had done on top of the over a year's worth of hurts because of this,  it was horrible for me to see what that did to them.... Especially Eric, who went from beaming giddy as a kid on Christmas morning to a frowning grimace with a tic in his cheek looking like he was going to cry while banging on his keyboard extra hard.  That is when I could even look at him,  I hardly could for those last two songs and the two songs in the encore,  because when I did look at him all I felt was my hurt over him having willingly taken part in bullying me via the band's instagram three times back in August/September compounded by HIS pain at everything he'd just lost and him seeing the place I was back in....

The first thing I did when I got back to the car was switch out their music because I couldn't listen to it again....  I put on Emma Langford's album Quiet Giant instead.

And now.  Now I'm back right exactly where I was before/during the Ann Arbor show.  Only the pain is deeper and fresher for my 24 hours of having been a fool for LETTING myself be taken in to be hurt again,  for thinking there was going to be a way out better than me leaving and that I could have all that light and love and joy and their music back in my life again....  It hurts worse for being fool enough to extend them that hope and faith only to be bullied yet again in the exact same way all over again....

I hurt so badly over it under the tension and unsmiling face with the distant eyes rebuffing your every overture to reopen real contact and revive that love that's the reason it hurts so badly.....

Tomorrow or the next day or the next I'll get this grief and pain under control so I can start shutting Eric out from reaching me on the bond, amplifying my hurt/grief with his.  And then after that I can work out how I put the bond to sleep again completely so none of his emotions bleed into mine and neither of us can hear or reach the other that way....  That's what I'll do when I get a better grip on it.  But right now,  the pain and sorrow is too raw,  too fresh.  All I can do is feel it until iit becomes my new normal instead of overwhelming me - and that will be when I can start on the next necessary steps for me to leave.

But dear gods,  it hurts so badly right now though.... And right now all I yearn for is that wondrous love and connection and joy that we refound in Chicago and I let myself believe I could have....that's where I want to turn for comfort from this hurt/sorrow, and I can't because Eric's sister and also Eric for following her lead on this  is the source of the pain for me...  .  Now I have to start all over again the 3 months work of accepting I can't have it..... And it's harder now,  right after that so recent and so blindly bright lovelight renewal between us.....

It just hurts and hurts and hurts and hurts right now and nothing helps ease it in me....

So I'm going to change into my pjs,  drink this chamomile blend tea now that the sun is up,  then curl up in the fetal position hugging my dog in my bed and wishing I could cry over it because that would ease the weight in my chest and the lump in my throat and the pricking in my eyes.  But,  unfortunately, I'm someone who grieves over loss of those I love so deeply that you can't cry to ease the pain of your loss because you hurt too much to have any catharsis yet....  It took me five years before I could cry over my grandfather's death,  five years of carrying that grief.  And it was 3 months before I could smile with my mouth,  4 months for even a sardonic laugh,  and 6 months for a smile that reached from my soul to my eyes - and that smile was for the puppy a family friend brought thinking my grandpa still alive and puppy snuggles would cheer him up for a bit.  He waa already 6 months dead,  but that puppy brought out my first real smile while I was in the hollows and my dad being a dog person and seeing that insisted right then we adopt Samwise Doggee....  Because my papa was the only one knew how hard I was grieving and how deep in the hollows I was when I told my parents they didn't have to fight over who was taking me to ballet a month pr so before - dance couldn't bring 9 year old me joy any longer so they shouldn't waste time or money or love in a spat over taking me to something that ceased bringing me joy.  After I started laughing and smiling with my eyes again,  everyone thought I had healed but really I just hid my grief I was carrying behind my eyes. The healing didn't start til the catharsis of crying released the grief - and that took me 5 years.  It was 10 years before I returned to dancing....there were people who met me in middle school and high school who never knew how central dance as an expression of joy in the music had always been to me and certainly no idea that I spent so long focused on being a professional ballerina before learning that at 9 I was already too tall for it.....  If I'm honest, I haven't been to a ballet class or any dance class since the precogs started of how much pain Delta Rae signing to a country label was going to cause me and what it was going to demand of me in giving up and bearing my way through the hollows of my grief over most likely losing Eric in this life due to the chain of events it would set in motion.  I haven't been to a dance class since - and as much as there are people in my life can't imagine me NOT alight inside dancing multiple hours a day almost every day in one of the disciplines I love,  it's been years since I last danced for real not just at concerts or club style dancing to pop songs I love.....  For me,  dance comes from the soul - and I can't do it other than surface level when I'm in the hollows grieving.....

So you can hope I dance all you want,  but I can't til the grieving fully heals.... And in me,  that's a long process of carrying sorrow and pain behind my eyes still clinging desperately to every spark and sparkle of joy I can find and showering everyone I meet with as much light and joy as I can while I grapple my way through the hollows to the catharsis of my first cry and the long years til I'm fully healed enough to go back to dancing....

I'm slow to heal my hurting,  just good at hiding that and going along stoix as I can knowing I'll get through it eventually....

And right now,  I hurt even worse than I did in August/September from Eric taking part in rhe bullying via ostracism behaviors.... Because I let me BELIEVE, truly believe, we could have that light and love we both have for each other and I let him in again.... And now I have to begin from scratch the process of numbing myself to this hurt so I can do what I must.....

But right now, today, all I can do is curl up with my pain and wish I could cry to ease it at least a little. And do my best to make me sleep when possible during the worst of the hurting part of the grieving.

I dropped my pup off with my parents after FINALLY kissing my emo little bear luck dragon inro accepting me only sleeping about 4 hours.  Mikaela was there with her mom as well. Disappointed I couldn't hang out but whispered to me while hugging me,  "You should go see Delta Rae more often Dani.  I don't remember the last time you didn't carry a sadness under your shiningness.  But the sadness is gone today - you're all sparkles and light straight through you."

And my mum said as my da walked in right before I was leaving,  "O good!  You can see how cute your daughter is before she leaves!"
And my da looked at me and thought loudly,  "Her eyes are happy again for the first time in months.  Her brightness goes past the surface again."

They're not wrong.  But I didn't realize it had been so obvious....

I have a lot to process from the last couple nights.  And need to head to bed get some sleep before tomorrow driving to Minneapolis and back

Ann Arbor was hard.  Everyone was just so upset and unhappy.  And I couldn't look at Eric at all without just feeling all the hurt and brokenness and distrust and all of it crash down on me....  Yet,  whenever I wouldn't look at him,  because looking hurt too mich, I'd just get swamped in his heartache over the fact he couldn't get a single smile from me (I think I smiled maybe twice and then during Dance In The Graveyards so long as I focused on Ian and the song itself. 

Tonight was better.  Which is good,  I don't think I could have taken another night like Ann Arbor.  Tonight,  I'd brought my rose quartz with bear claw charm in with me (hangs from front mirror,  but I don't leave it up parking in bigger cities.  And the thing is,  rose quartz amplifies love connections.  And for me,  it manifests as enhancing my empath gifts AND by turning up the volume on all my inner empath bonds and karmic bonds. And. Since the one to Eric is strongest of all,  if he's feeling anything strongly,  his strong emotions drown out everything.... I actually have been unable to wear any of my rose quartz jewelry or even have it within my chi/auric field because if I do,  the strength pf his grief just completely drowns me til I feel like I can't breathe the sorrow hurts so all-consumingly.  So tonight,  especially with the physical proximity, having that small piece of rose quartz in my purse and a similar size piece of quartz in there,  all I could hear of anyone's emotions in that entire space was Eric.  All of it.  And I couldn't stand his suffering, not knowing that all he needed was for me to look at him.  Even if I couldn't smile,  he just needed me to at least meet his eyes and to listen and let us at least make eye contact to know that even with all the hurt there,  there was still lpve amd need and desire to heal the hurting there.  In both of us....  And I reached a point I just couldn't fight that anymore.... And his joy when I finally did was so incandescently bright, even if neither of us could more than half smile that it just broke some stubborn proud part of me that was refusing to let go before,  and I just.... Right then,  all I wanted was fpr him to feel how deeply I still loved him,  under the hurting and mistrust, and to bask in the joy of that mutual acknowledgement.  And....  To let us both feel all the complex emotions and bare those honestly openly and feel the reassurance and love from the other person just wash over that to make it heal.  And that was a bit of a chain reaction of joy for everyone onstage..... 

And.  Things are still complicated.  And though I love him want him more than I've ever wanted anyone or anything - I don't want him if he doesn't want me or if things are going to be toxic/poisoned between us,  or if we can only bring one or both of us suffering.... What I WANT is him with only love and light and joy that beings us both healing and makes us better for having each other....  And those are the only terms I want it on - if it's going to be toxic or hurtful,  I'd rather we let each other go til we've learned the lessons to be something solely of goodness for each other....  

And I don't know that I believe we can have that for us.... Because nothing has been fixed or addressed and that toxic poisonous set of issues is exactly what it was before I saw him in person again....  It may still be best and kindest for the both of us for me to cut all ties to him and the band til we have each grpwn enough to be healthy and healing and good for each other.... I just don't know.... 

But even if me cutting ties and going is the healthiest thing for the both pf us,  I'd rather go with him knowing how deep the love is in me for him and how incandescently pure and good and unwavering that love is.  That he know and feel that so he has that much.... 

Because even if poisoned seeds have grown to toxic strengtg that ruins any chance of anything healthy between us,  I still want him to KNOW,  with no shadows of doubt,  how bright how much love is there always and always. So he can carry tgat with him,  even if only in memories.  

Also.  I'm glad they didn't do You Can Tell Him I'm Leaving.  I couldn't have handled it....  And then,  for everyone to leave stage after Doesn't Get Any Better Than This so he could have time/space for just him and his piano for Meaning Of It All.....  That took so much courage and maybe a lot of desperation in his sorrow,  and reaching a place of,  "I can't live with myself if I don't acknowledge these truths before I lose you." And also a very smart,  "I am going to MAKE you look at me,  make you have nobody else up here but meeting my eyes listening to what I need you to know." i was so close to breaking down and just sobbing uncontrollably at multiple points for the rawness and honesty in him about it.  and all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around him tell him,  "Enough pain.  Enough hurting.  There's already been too much of it.  It's time to make things better,  to heal.  But for now it's time to just wrap our arms and love around each other til it drowns out all the rest. " Especially the end,  the promise there that no matter how bad this storm and how deep our hurting goes,  he'll still be waiting with his arms wide open.... 

And it broke down the last of what was pulling away from him in me, all I wanted was to believe that and to hug him til we both knew deep in our bones it would be good somehow.  

But.  It still might be healthiest for us both for me to go.   I dunno.  My precogs show me nothing.  It's all too muddled and the choices to definitely decide which path we take haven't been made yet - the coin is still in the air spinning.....  

I did break down let go of enough of my hurting that on the drive home,  for the first time since late August, I actively WANTED to listen to Delta Rae music and put it on for the rest pf the ride.... 

I dunno.  Tonight is the third and last of the shows.  I forget if it's the dress all of gold or covered in diamonds or the dress made of sunshine that the princess wears to the third dance in all the fairytales...  Don't think I own either, and this is real life not a fairy tale anyway. I honestly have no idea what I'll actually wear.  Didn't get that far ahead...  But it's 5:30am and I should get some sleep.... 

G'night. Even if it's morning now.  Sweet dreams.  Things are still complicated uncertain don't know which way the coin will fall.....  But it's better than it was. It's a fragile thawing and start toward rapprochement and healing.  But it is a start.  And for the first time in months,  it tastes of hope...  

P. S.  The Leonids meteor shower peak today and tomorrow. Tonight is a good night for stargazing and night drives and making wishes...... So is Sunday night. 

See. The thing is. The closer I get to actually seeing Eric, the harder it is for me to stay stubbornly upset and hurt with him.... It's just neither my nature nor my desire to be upset with him or see him hurting.....

Am I still angry at the situation? yes. Do I still read between the lines of everything posted from the band accounts as a veiled, "All of our fans EXCEPT those we blocked because you were honest about what we didn't want to hear. So you're not our fans. We'll take your money but you're not a fan." no matter what the actual content of the post or the medium the band uses? Yes -- words don't matter when your actual actions are a direct and continuous contradiction of the words. Is this HEIGHTENED if it comes from Brittany or Jessie as the primary people involved in how that happened last year to set this entire situation up? Absolutely.  Was it made a thousand times worse by the very intentional and ostentatious proclamations EVERYWHERE in August saying,  "we want to celebrate with our fans - come hang out with us on instagram live" and then NOBODY responding or dealing with being told that's straight up ostracism to have it be on the band's instagram from which fans had been blocked for stating they had issues with the country music related band choices?  Oh HELL yes! That quite explicitly was a DELIBERATE exl3usion and slap in the face of "we're celebrating with all our fans and anyone who isn't here isn't REALLY a fan." alongside the DELIBERATE gaslighting and relational bullying of simply treating a person as if they don't exist. Did I get that message from Brittany, Jessie,  and Eric and the choices they made at the end of the kickstarter?  Yes, yes I did - loud and clear.  Do I WANT to like content that they have been sharing that aesthetically and intellectually and emotively appeals to me? Yes, yes I do. Can I find myself liking it now with the way things are and how they have been for over a year now since that decision was made in the name of the entire band? No -- I can't like it, even if I try it just makes me feel sad and hurt and unwanted and unappreciated and that I should just fucking leave because then they can do whatever the hell it is they want to do and I won't be hurt by it because I won't see it to be reminded of the subtext of EVERYTHING that has happened as a result of deciding to block a fan for being honest about a truth you didn't want to hear and didn't want known. Do I now have trust issues with Eric and question his ethical core and his ability to have empathy for anothers suffering that I never had before his choices to go live on the band account (3 times, not just once) without ever addressing any of this? YES -- and this isn't going to be easy or quick to heal. Broken trust never is.

So it's complicated. It's not a matter of want versus stubbornness in me, it's about genuine issues of ethics and principles and the doubt that has been sowed toward the girls, toward the band generally, and toward Eric now.  And ALL OF IT is directly as a result of this one action that was done a year ago in the band's name and that the band has defended by refusing to address or redress no matter whose attention it has been brought to or how it has been brought to them.


And the sorrow and grief and aching loss in me over feeling this is the only option left toward Eric for me to pursue is to be saying goodbye on the best terms I can with this hand we have and this toxic choice that was made and NEVER cleaned up by anyone so it festered and has infected, well, everything to do with the band for me... That sorrow and grief in me is also a gaping chasm inside me right now and if I look too close into it, it howls and hurts and overrides everything else. But I can stoic through that -- it's a loss I've known before. And I should admit that my only fault in this situation was to choose honesty over lying sycophancy, the fact this flaw was tested and he failed and that hurts me IS my own damn fault for pushing in how I constructed my reward life request before he'd finished learning his lesson that he stumbled over so badly 400 years ago with me.....  If I'd chosen for my reward life differently, I could have made it so that any seeking me could find me WHEN they were ready for encountering me -- and then he'd just not have known about me or remembered me before meeting me or had any of the psychic linkage of the internal bond or any of it til he'd learned this lesson some other way and was ready to be given the chance of finding me again.  That's on me, that I should have known enough to add that clause into what I asked for that secondary term of my reward life.... I'd have saved us both this pain and this situation we're now mired in.

It's not that I don't want him and it's not that I don't want to heal all this mess and work at cleaning it up -- it's simply that I can't do it one-sidedly and I can't do it from only the options available to me. I can't make choices for other people and I refuse to try to bend or force another's will -- the healing has to start with making right what got broken in this relationship, it can't begin anywhere else. With only the options available to me, my best choice is to put the bond to sleep so its presence cannot be a source of hurt to us or anyone else in our lives (we can be hurt by its absence, the silence and emptiness of it missing, but that's a passive hurt not an active danger that's unfair to other people) and to walk away from any and everything to do with the band. To give in to what the stated subtext and goal of is in the decision to block a long time fan -- the denial that I am a fan of the band or antyhing they do.

But it doesn't mean I don't love Eric and want him to be happy and to have the happiness it is he seeks in his life. And it doesn't mean I'm not hurting and sad and scared and wishing there were another way out of this mess. And it doesn't mean I wouldn't RATHER clean this up and try to heal things than have me walk away. It just means I acknowledge that the options at my disposal in this situation are limited because I can't make choices or actions for other people and so I can't fix what was broken here. It's not within my sets of options to do that.  And I'm not going to be party to trying to hang on any longer to something toxic that will just require more karmic cleaning later, I'd rather leave it than make the mess worse than it already is......

It's not me being stubborn -- it's me acknowledging I lack the capacity to do anything else about this situation the way it is now and someone with other choices and options will have to change it before my options open to me change. It's me playing out the best I can this shitty hand that was dealt by 1) the band deciding to go country 2) the girls getting defensive and rationalizing their cruelty at being told that the country music is EXTREMELY painful to my synesthesia and was going to stop me attending shows or being able to listen to their music in the future as they tried to conform to country radio and 3) that defensiveness and rationalizing and desire to hide their cruelty culminating in the decision to block me on the band's official instagram account.

That's the hand that was dealt and these are the way that hand plays out.

It plays out in the band losing a long time loyal fan due to the sheer stubborn stupidity and defensiveness of the girls rationalizing manifesting as bullying behaviors and cruelty -- and the band refusing to back down or make right what Brittany did wrong. And that choice inevitably plays out as me walking away and cutting off inner ties to Eric and him losing everything that could and should have been born from him finally finding me again.....

*shrugs*

There are no options and no choices and no actions that I have to fix this or heal what was broken. So And all my attempts to try to get anyone else to listen or do a damn thing about it were deliberately and repeatedly ignored and gaslit as if they'd never been made. So I'm attempting to make the best decision of the options and choices and actions that ARE available to me.

This is me admitting defeat. This is me burying all that was good and should have been even better and brighter moving forward. That's what me walking away is -- and I know it. I'm not going to lie to myself about that. I don't go in for the lies to make things easier -- not to tell myself and not to tell others. So I know this is me admitting defeat.

And that is how we got to where we are right now. Right in this crux of opportunities to fix this some other way are almost all past and writ in stone all the choices everyone has made.

I am so fucking enamoured with the new Jonas Brothers Christmas song they just released, Like It's Christmas

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It's sooooooo fucking amazing!!!!!! Everything about it, musically and thematically!!!!!

*happy sigh* You really don't want to know how many times I've listened to it today!!! Just,t rust me, you don't.

I've actually been on quite a journey since the release of Sucker in March from denial to acceptance that I just really fucking love what reunited Jonas brothers sounds like.  Like, since April, I've just been quite honest that I am a convert to being a fan of Jo Bro. Their pop songs are so solidly good and they're anchored so firmly in really classic staples that got lost in the last 8 years or so of pop music's wanderings and The Jonas Brothers are HERE to bring us the lyrical hooks you can't get out of your brain but really don't want to, their sibling barbershop motown harmonies, snaps/claps for rhythm section, all the variety of keys and synths, brass AND strings as needed, and dropping in that whistle where it's needed. And I am 100% here for what they've been serving up this year!!! (Even before Joe married Sansa, I mean Sophie turner. She will always be Sansa to me though....)

Happiness Begins is genuinely one of my absolute FAVORITE albums of the year. It satisfies the same part of me that adores Hanson, neon Trees, Bastille, Imagine Dragons, etc. The same part that used to find such intense joy from Chasing Twisters, Scared, Any Better Than This, Badlands, etc. Until the girls, especially Brittany, destroyed that so I'm now at a point I don't even desire to listen to those songs -- they couldn't bring me joy with the way things are now even if I did listen to them. But the Jo Bro album Happiness begins, it revives in me all that same joy and light and love -- just for the music of another band. But that still satisfies all the same motown-pop-rock vibe.

That said, I've had since falling in love with Sucker to acknowledge this and I've had since the summer to realize my adoration of Happiness Begins. But Like It's Christmas is an all new "fall in love with this sound all over again" for me!!! And I am so here for it right now!!!! It's exactly the gift I needed at this time!!

Tomorrow: hanging out with extended family at 10:30, then going to the Badgers-Iowa game at 3.
Sunday: Symphony tickets at 2.

Getting hours in at work around that (still at work now.)

next week also getting hours in front of the week. Heading to Ann Arbor late Weds/stupid early thurs to be sure to get through Chicago overnight when traffic is chillest. (Not actually looking forward to he opener, Carrie Welling. I know she's a good friend and former housemate of Eric's, and she may well be a very lovely human -- but her voice is TOO painfully country for me even just in the clips from that single they shared.) So very much not looking forward to having to sit through her as an opener for one of the three shows -- but Liz Longley for the other two is still a delight to me!!!  Coming back on Friday via the Chicago show, gonna pick up my dog and sleep in my own bed that night even if it's late. Then Saturday headed to Minneapolis and home again that night as well.

And hopefully by the end of that, I will be at a point of inner peace and acceptance of reality for what it is now and fallible people's fuckups then trying to hide them instead of face them as simple facts you need to set your expectations at. On verra.

But til then, it's gonna be a Jo Bro karaoke and dance party up in here!!! Because when it is, I genuinely don't even think about any of them or give a flying fuck about Delta Rae or wishing I could still love their music (still haven't listened to the single they released of Take Me There) or care what they do or don't do or feel anything at all about what sorts of people they show themselves to be. And that's good I think.  That's progress from where I was at end of August and all of September and even much of October....

Aaaaand, for right now, I'mma play Like It's Christmas yet again! This song though! Just dayumn!!!!

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Hi.  Yes.  7:46am CST. You're doing it again.  Would you like to tell me why you're flooding the bond with your love and light? Orrrrr.  No?  Does it just happen sometimes without your control?  Or is it intentional?  Do you even know when you're doing it?

Alright then. Don't tell me.  I'mma make another cuppa tea then and read some more.

Hi.  Yes.  It's 5:30 in the morning CST and you're flooding the bond with love and light with all the strength you possess so it drowns out everything else.  It's very heady. And intense. and it's been ages since that's happened....

And I'd just like to know,  um what?  Now?  Why now?  Je ne comprends pas......

Pssst!!  I'm better now.  My anger burned itself out.  The play and the playwright and al the mansplainers in the world ain't worth any more of my anger.

And I don't need any more o'my scotch. Best save it for another night. You know trump tariffs have been put on French wine,  Irish whiskey,  AND scotch?! Now THAT is something worth cussing like a hellcat over....  But I won't.

I am, however,  gonna put the kettle on for another cuppa tea then back to my book.  Shit just got real dark,  real quick!  And I am absolutely not even the slightest little bit capable of thinking about putting the book down going to bed!!  OMFG though what?! Chapter 9 of The Invasion of the Tearling,  say WUT?!?!

i'mma be tired tomorrow (today now)  and it's my maman's birthday. But there is a 0% chance I could sleep even if I tried with what this book just did....  Say wha?!

Also though.  My anger dunnae need more scotch,  but fuck all this turn the book has taken requires another wee dram o scotch in my snifter...

So I am absofuckinglutely livid right now....  Don't worry! Not at you darling.  Not at anyone close in your life and certainly not at you. Not unless your name is Lucas Hnath,  and you decided that as a moden man, you felt that the critiques against another man's proto-feminist existentialist examination of mansplainong female identity and self hood must come from a lack of understanding about feminism therefore it is your job to write a play of the same central characters 15 years in the future to mansplain how a woman discovers and defends her self-identity by having her confront the arguments of all the critiques by embodying all the classic misogynistic tropes of a woman as: irrational, flighty, selfish,  materialistic, deflecting or changimg the subject if she can! T defend her position, and above all impossible to please EVEN WHEN YOU GIVE HER EXACTLY WHAT SHE ASKED FOR!  Just.... i don't even know where to BEGIN with why the fuck every single thing about that is utterly infuriatingly not getting it....  I just....  And then the actual dialogue/plot content.....   Don't even get me started on all that is wrong and maddening about it.....  There wasn't a single woman in the queue for the loo afterward who seemed to identify or agree with the playwright.

Don't get me wrong,  the acting was SUPERB and the costumes divinely exquisite (especially Dora's shot silk ensemble)  and I'd go see it again in a heartbeat to watch Jimmy DeVita,  Colleen Madden, and  Sarah Day playing against each other so brilliantly. But the mansplaining play pisses me off so fucking much......

Gah!

Anyway.  Read it (or see it)  and form your own opinion.... But never lose sight that it's written by a man trying to mansplain a "feminist" defense of how a woman creates and defens her own self-identity....

And now,  this incredibly irate bitch knows what she wants: she's going to take her t-shirt and skivvies but no bra clad arse to steep a cuppa tea and pwatch the snow outside while waiting then pour herself some Johnnie Walker red label (what I felt justified my budget could afford when I bought it) for the other hand, gather up all the remaining peanut m&ms, and go curl up to reada novel til I calm my shit down.  Will continue to apply tea, new fallen snow, scotch,  and novel til shit be calmed is achieved. Unless anyone has a better idea how to calm me down make me less ready for a fight....  Maybe I should listen to Hit Me With Your Best Shot on repeat.  (I actively really love that song and have since I was a kid. There's something about the line "You're a real tough cookie with a long history,  of breaking little hearts like the one in me. Before I put another notch in my lipstick case,  you better be sure to put me in my place" and the entire put up or shut up badass bitch vibe of it that just resonates with me when my temper gets riled up.)

(naw but honest,  my anger is nothing to do with anything you did.  Promise.  Unless your name is Lucas Hnath.....)

Yeah it's been a few days since I lasted posted. I'm fine, just have nothing I wish to write about here. Happens sometimes.

nothing has changed. No revolutions and no revelations. Nothing has changed. I still haven't listened to Take Me There.  I still don't want to listen to the new song or any songs by Delta Rae.  Do not expect that to change without addressing the instagram account issues the girls created in blocking me for being honest AND addressing the trust issues I now have with Liz,  Britt,  and Eric for their use of insta live as means of providing exclusive content WHILE KNOWING that a system of ostracism had been created against their fans who disliked the country music and doing nothing to fix it.  That is something that will never disappear nor fix itself with me....

Everything is just as it was. we're just several days closer to the shows I have tickets for but wouldn't plan to go to if I didn't have the tickets. I'm not excited for the shows, mostly I'm just, "Meh." about the whole thing. I don't trust the girls and if I don't trust them I can't like them. As for Eric, that still hurts and I don't currently trust him either after the way he behaved end of August and early September. I certainly do NOT trust him given how malleable he is to peer pressure rationalizing so long as Jessie is in any fashion a part of his life or a friend of his. I know that i genuinely dislike everything I've seen of Jessie or from Jessie. Including her over sharpened bad filters/effects pictures. If she were to come up to me and tell me that Eric NEEDED to see me and I had to go with her, I'd look her in the eyes and tell her to her face, "I don't like anything I've seen about you. I don't trust you. And I refuse to go anywhere you might lead. if Eric needs to see me, have him send someone I'd trust." That's my visceral instinctive response to Jessie and has been since she first showed up on so many posts related to The Revival.  She was a bigger deterrent than the country artists for me to not attend any of the shows of that project or desire to visit their haunted chapel they created for it.  My initial response was instinctive icks and observation of her and her influence on them,  especially Britt but also Eric, does nothing to improve my intuitive revulsion toward her and everything she touches..... Having her around and involved compounds the problems and makes the chance of reconciliation and healing less likely.....

And that's just how it is now.  That's where we're at.....

~*~*~*~

I read this passage earlier this morning, at about 5am, and it resonated strongly with me. 

"The wrongs of the past are not less significant, they're just harder to fix.  And the longer you ignore them in favor of more pressing issues,  the worse the harm,  until the problems of the past actually create the problems of the future."

That's where we're at now,  the point where the problems of the past that were never dealt with or addressed or fixed, but just attempted to hide them by sweeping them under the rug ignored are actively creating the problems of the future.....  And the future problems they're creating are "for the rest of this lifetime" level problems.  And time is pretty much up on averting those future problems. And all because the problems now of the past were never faced.....

And that's not on me. My choice was to be honest and forthright and not try to hide the hard truths but rather face them and in facing them find a better answer.  I was never met with that same honesty,  courtesy,  and desire to solve things before they became stubbornly insoluble. i tried - but open dialogue takes both parties trying,  not just one....and all the girls wanted was to be right and to be idolized and to hide any uncomfortable truths.  I'm at the point I'm ready to give up trying,  turn on my heel walk away to go find people who care and will respond to honesty with honesty.

I'm gonna go make another cuppa Some Like It Hot tea (a black tea chai with hot peppers in it as well as peppercorns) and read some more. (still reading The Tearling trilogy, it's incredibly good!  Only, it's one you read slowly to savor even when you can't put it down and the last couple weeks somehow got ridiculously busy on me.) I may change out of my pjs and take the dog on a walk in the new snow after the sun is up. She'd love that - playing in the snow and playing in muddy bogs are two of her favorite things....she doesn't like summer as much,  she overheats easily and the only good things in the summer are playing swim fetch and long days "helping" me in the garden. but for hiking and walks and playing outside?  My dog is all about the snowy days and wet boggy days,  lol.  May also head into work for a bit later today once the roads are ploughed.

Most likely, I'll just keep reading and drinking tea til I make coffee and brunch then shower then head to work around 4 to be sociable.  (been VERY introverted lately when not busy or migraine,  and people who love me are missing me.) Heading to Spring Green and over to APT tonight to see Hrnath's A Doll's House Pt.  2 (don't get me started on the shortcomings of the play - I read it right after seeing their production of Ibsen's A Doll's House.  Both are by men, Hnath writing his idea of a sequel to Ibsen's classic.  Writing to try to explain what female Independence and self-definitio looks like....and both define it by refusing all attempts at compromise or pleasing you so you decide you can only define you by abandoning the people you love. why not stop mansplaining for a second and just let women write the plays if you really want to know what we want/need to be strong in our own identity?!) The play's at The Touchstone,  their indoor theater, not Up The Hill so I will not be sitting outside in the snow up in the woods for hours.  At least,  not tonight,  lol.