Truth or Consequences

I've been thinking a lot about trust lately. It's a strange thing when you think about it. We know what it is, we know how it feels on a gut level, but how do you get it? Where does it come from? Shared experiences, I guess. Time. Love. How do you know you can really trust someone, though? Maybe you never really know. People, me included, are good at hiding things. Sometimes I think we're better at lying than we are at telling the truth. Sometimes lying is easier, I guess. And we all know we want easy, right?

I'm sure everyone had the experience growing up where we did something bad, got caught and then got the "you abused our trust" conversation. Always ended the same way, "you'll have to work to earn our trust back." That's the part that seems a little fuzzy to me. How? How do you make it up? How do you let that person anywhere near you again? How do you trust someone that's let you down? Who's that brave? Who wants to risk getting hurt again?

Here's another trust thing that I'm sure everyone has heard about. Remember the game you'd play at camp or at team-building sessions for work or school or whatever - the one where you'd have a partner and would fall back and they would catch you? Or even scarier, the one where you'd stand on a ledge and fall back into a bunch of people's interlocking arms? I've NEVER done that and all of a sudden that makes me sad. I guess I'm not a very trusting person. I wonder what that says about me? I don't think I let people in. I want to, but I never do - not all the way. I think trusting others is a reflection of trusting yourself, and maybe I don't really.

But, then I hear "Blue Sky" (see my previous post) and think that maybe I could do it. Maybe I could close my eyes and fall back into someone's arms. I know there are lots of arms out there that are ready to catch me if I just go ahead and fall away. Maybe I don't have to live the ways I've always lived. I know change is a glacially slow process, but I'm working hard on it. I don't want to hold people at arm's length. I am who I am and if you don't like it, can't deal with it, are put off by it, then you can find the door.

Forget the concept of Americans' "personal space."

Fall away, I say. Get close enough to catch me. Bring it on.