It’s been a rough few days.

But worth it, and a cap off to a great period overall.

The hell waiting for you to sort through it compounds until you get there. There’s no running from what you find festering in badly healed wounds you have to cut open & clean out in order to healthily go forward.

But it’s funny how, in the midst of the big horror show, shit you didn’t recognize as mini variants of the same dis-ease swoop in trying to make you at least stay the old course in a small way, even as you’re cutting yourself out of the big shit, facing the truth.

It was how quickly it swept in, right after I spoke my peace on that fucked, heartbreaking situation.

And it was totally impersonal, the swoop, just the system overall that’s used to you being trapped in it seeing you make a break for it, and throwing who or whatever is pilotable according to its m.o. at you… to at least slow you down, if not muck you up.

Soon as the cheer went up, an acquaintance swept in with an offer of escape… to a beautiful place right after an upcoming gig here.

And it had all the innocuous bells and zingers of pseudo kismet and surface perfectly timed synchronicity that, in past times I would’ve jumped on as proof of victory, being such a good thing on the heels of going through something so bad as well as I could.

But this time, because of what I’d finally spoken my truth to upon seeing it for what it was… there was space and clarity. & remembrance of my initial intent and declaration: To be here now, even if love beyond me evaporated.

I had the wherewithal to put out a fleece: if this was the right path, the parameters would truly line up perfectly. Any resistance to that told me the distraction it was.

I broached those terms – that lined up with what they’d been informed of from first contact- and was met with awkward silence.

There’s no point in what you do for people being appreciated when they don’t respect you or what it costs you to do it. This world tries to bend it back and say “Oh, that’s low self-respect-” but it’s not- it’s 99% of the time someone sincerely just following their heart and others being disrespectful to them because they don’t value the person.

& it sucks this time to see that the line up was a false flag. & to ponder how many other times it was that I glossed over in pollyanna mode. I really dig this family. But I can not fill in their silence to mean something it doesn’t because that filler feels better & ignore the actuality of the response they gave.

I knew it was my big problem being grappled with. I just now see what the seed variant of it is. & it sucks lol. But I gotta surrender to the sight.

They were waiting for me to accept while ignoring a confirmation of needed parameters prior to accepting. & I felt this awkward pushback IN the silence to the parameters.

It kicked up miniscule variants of slights stomached in the horror show so almost imperceptibly that it shook me.

“This is how it starts.”

& that systemically infected part balked too.

Groused off in the cut, pointed out the beauty of when & where, and all the who did I think… I could figure a way to without requiring the bare minimum- this used to be fine, you can do you with this, just say yes-

Running the numbers shut it up.

So I declined the offer to come cover for the respite trip sans the parameters and sent them this.

There’s a true weariness. To this. Peopling.