Well thank you sky. I work on steeling my heart, especially in the anonymity of the interwebz, and with the realization it took me way too many years to come to: that most people will hurt you if given the chance...and so I often go way to the other side as I try to find the middle. But, it's all me, in my complexity and in my mediocrity, and it's all honest.
We protect ourselves. We also give of ourselves, tentatively, and we find opposition and we find caring. One can't know if one is giving part of themself to a beast, until the beast rears its ugly head. For me, the beast-head needs to be destroyed. If we give to an angel, we are rewarded tenfold...and we just want to give more.
That's how I live my life anyway. As we talk about integrity I think how important that trait is to me: none of us are perfect, but I have no time nor room for liars, cheats, and thieves. Those of that kind I've let into my life have a way of sticking around far too long, because in their dishonest mind everything that happens is about them...and they manipulate me even as I hurriedly try to put up another wall. I'd rather have an honest person tell me to go fuck myself, than have a liar tell me I'm perfect. When a liar tells me to go fuck myself...well, there's that beast-head again.
