Integrity

I feel sick.  I feel sick because I have to have a difficult conversation with the man I love.  I have to tell him that how things are is not okay.  If he deals with it, we can carry on.  If he does nothing, we will have to separate.  There is not a single bit of me that wants to separate from him.  If we do separate it will not be because we do not have a deep and loving connection.  Sometimes circumstances are just not right.  Damn them.  I feel sick because as much as we love each other, our time may be over.

I look for integrity in others, I try and ask integrity of myself.  I see integrity as a wholeness or harmony of the self.  It is honesty, but it is honesty with oneself, it is the knowledge that if one did various things, those acts would somehow violate that harmony.  One would let oneself down.  In that sense, it is an internal construct, an internal rule by which to measure our actions.  It is possible that sometimes no one else would know one was acting without integrity.  But you would know.  As with all our behaviour and actions, our integrity is our own responsibility.

We had the conversation.  We talked together, not 'to' or 'at' each other, but together.  It was only the anticipation that made me feel sick.  The moment we began to talk, the sickness vanished, because then it became the simple expression of how one feels, no expectations, no machinations to achieve a particular outcome.  Just: here we are, this is how I feel, what do you think? I don't know what he will do, and when.  I don't know what the result will be for us.  But I spoke with love and honesty about the only thing I really know: how I feel and what I am thinking.  The thoughts and feelings of others, and thus their actions, belong to them, and we can assume no authority.