Judith Klemos

If you are following this blog you might have noticed a few false publications of this post. Electronics and I have a very symbiotic relationship. While I decided to pull this post altogether and cancelled the publication, the Universe usurped that thought and published it anyway. So, here I sit rearranging words to more accurately express my thoughts and not just my emotion.

Honor

I don’t think I value anything higher than Honor. Well maybe, perhaps integrity, but can you really have one without the other?  Let’s just keep it to Honor today. And yes, I’ll be capitalizing it, because it deserves that.

I have an eclectic intimate circle. Friends and family who are as different as the sun from the moon from the blades of grass. But they all share one thing in common; they have Honor.

Oddly enough, I can’t find my definition of Honor in the dictionary. This is the closest it comes

2 adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct: I must as a matter of honor avoid any taint of dishonesty. • dated a woman’s chastity or her reputation for being chaste: she died defending her honor.

Honor is a quality that is felt more than spoken about, I suppose. I will attempt to capture its essence in words, however. Honor is a combination of Respect, Integrity and Grace. Perhaps even a little appreciation and gratitude? Nah, let’s just leave it at Respect, Integrity and Grace.

Honor shows up in how someone treats you, talks to you and talks about you. Honor is at the base of every relationship I have. When someone exhibits dishonorable behaviors, it is my choice to release them of the bonds of relationship.

It wasn’t always that way though. There was a time I had no idea what Honor meant and I allowed others in my life who behaved dishonorably. I allowed behaviors like lying, bullying, manipulation and deprecation to be a part of some very intimate relationships.

Intimate relationships are ride or die. They are the ones that are meant to have your back, not stab you in it.

What I came to realize one day, after a particularly painful stab is I don’t have friends who treat me that way.

It hit me like a flash of bright white light. I don’t have friends who treat me that way. I just couldn’t believe the profound simplicity of it. I don’t have friends who treat me that way. I didn’t have to decide to not be friends, because I had just realized that wasn’t a friend to begin with. I had only imagined we were friends. (Every relationship has friendship as a base, so this applies to all types of relationships including familial and romantic.)

Here’s the thing, you can’t imagine people to be better or bigger than they imagine themselves. For whatever reasons these people abandon honor in a friendship, it has nothing to do with you. It is their burden to bear; their demon to slay.

As soon as I become aware of the lack of Honor, I’m out. It’s a clear line for me, now. What you chose to do within the relationship is up to you of course. I am not sure my way, is the best way. I just don’t know if it is wise to let go of people so easily. However, I do know that when I haven’t, when I’ve afforded chance after chance I experience additional hurt and betrayal.

Why? Because we teach people how to treat us.

Until and unless we can stand in the space of our own Honor, and Honor ourselves, we can never find honorable individuals with which to share our lives.

And this is really important, because those people who treat you dishonorably? They don’t Honor themselves either. That’s where it has to start and while you might find compassion for that person, they do not have the capability to have compassion for you.

In a relationship, any type of relationship, there is bound to be hurt. Hurt is understandable. There are hurt feelings when we miscommunicate or misunderstand. There are hurts when unexpressed expectations aren’t met. Hurt, though, is not harm. No harm shall come to one within the confines of a relationship, be it romantic or plutonic. When one harms another within a relationship it negates the unspoken contract to which both had entered.

At least in my mind.

I spent many years ‘forgiving’ and ‘understanding’ dishonorable acts. Chalking them up to drunken or drugged influence, unhealed wounds or just plain misunderstanding.  This was my great mistake, as harm followed like the moon follows the sun. But when you are done being harmed by someone you will draw that healthy boundary.

Honor Omnia Superat

Honor Surpasses All Things

I love you.

~Jade