Trust

“Trusting is hard. Knowing who to trust, even harder.” - Maria V Snyder, Poison Study

 

I have a hard time trusting people, so when I decide to make the leap, it's a big deal. When I perceive that someone has broken that trust, it's an even bigger deal. I've never been able to do a trust walk without peeking to see where we are going. I've never been able to even attempt a trust fall.

 

Trust is a delicate thing, like the thin stem of a wine glass. Although fragile, it can support the weight of the bowl and the wine inside. However, apply enough pressure and it can shatter into hundreds of razor sharp fragments.

 

To have trust broken on purpose is devastating. To have it broken by accident is only slightly less painful. So, to protect myself, I created rules. If I decide to really trust someone and they break that trust, they don't usually get a second chance. If I give them a second chance and they break that trust again, there are consequences and they usually involve some sort of punishment. These aren't random rules that I created out of air. These are the result of spending years being manipulated and lied to by someone who should have protected me. Time after time I forgave. Time after time I believed it would never happen again. Time after time I trusted until I couldn't do it anymore.

 

Learning to trust again has been hard. It's two steps forward and one back. It's a dance of uncertainty on a tightrope of faith and I am balancing as best as I can.