I never doubted that trust until now. That craziness that possesses me and makes me into an irrational mess had not surfaced in weeks and weeks and weeks. I felt it initially and you beat it out of me. Gently and kindly with love, but it was gone. When B came in June she immediately noticed my calm. Having seen me through many a relationship, both in person and on the phone, she never heard this kind of calm. At least not from me, at least not on any sort of consistent basis. At times, I have wondered if the calm was a bad thing. Did it mean I didn't love you? Where was all the drama and heart palpations? Don't those mean love and passion? In the past they always seem to have gone together. Yet even those questions passed. I knew I loved you, in the way you let me and taught me. After all, the calm was aaa-mazing. Calming, earning its name in every glorious minute of it.
But maybe I fell too deeply into your trap. My instinct to question and doubt should have still been turned on low, like a burner left on a stove. Litigator, interrogator and questioner. I shut mine down, at your urging. To me, my friend, that was the biggest show of trust I could have given to you. Ever. But it was you that betrayed that big heaping ball of trust.
If you tell me to believe and you coax me into a state of calm you have to honor that calm. Taking it for granted and pushing it to the maximum are not signs of respect. I have given you a present and you left it in the driveway to be run over by oncoming traffic or picked up my the garbage men on Monday morning. You have to be honest and upfront. To me, and us, to honor the calm, you have to be truthful and not hide things you think will hurt. That only makes it worse. You commit fallacy upon fallacy. It made the hurting feel like lemon juice dripped into an open wound. Not only have you misrepresented information, so that we are living a lie presently. But you have made me question what other information was not true. So that we may have been living a lie in the past. Finally, the last squeeze of the juice, you presented this calm package for my taking. I unwrapped it and lived in it for months. When all of it was a lie. I should have never even been calm. Even that was a farce. The wound itself was not bad enough, you dumped a lemon grove into them and scarred me.
The calm is gone. Bits of the trust have fallen off. Remnants of the past person's indiscretions are boiling to the surface. Ready to be dished out all over again. While they are not yours, you will take credit for them and live them. It is your burden, for the wounds, the scars, the lemons and the trust.
I know you love me. The words, the e-mails and text messages. All say the same thing. That is the problem and where the issue takes root. Where is the truth? You led me to believe in the love, along with leading me to believe in the calm. And we saw how well that turned out. I should not believe any of it and the believing stops here. I don't want to keep falling deeper into this trusting bathtub. One day I will drown. It will have been your doing and you will not be there to rescue me. I will have to resuscitate myself, step gingerly out of the tub, one toe at a time and towel off. Stand, shake and shiver from the cold. I will be there alone to dry my hair, apply deodorant and brush my teeth. I will eventually be able to leave the house in a presentable form, but it will take weeks and months to get there.
That is why we start now. I am reclaiming my crazy and receding. That ball of trust is back in my court. The burner will be back on low. Before the scarring can get any deeper. I hate to turn back like that and I am sure the Dr. Phil's of the world would disapprove. Shake their head in disapproval and lecture on building and foundation, loving, relationships and all. But I can't get there yet. I am a creature of my past, my friends, the movies and literature. I have seen others blind sided by trust. This is a sign that is meant to be yielded to now, not in six months when I am sitting with my girlfriends over bottles of wine and tears, recounting why it didn't work. I don't want to look back and say, "yeah, I should have used that moment as a warning." Why not use it now as a warning and work with it at this point. No head shaking or tears, at least not yet. At this point I get to evaluate, re-tract some and make my next move. It can be crazy and it can be recession. But, it is my choice now, one you lost when you made your move.
Labels: Breathing, Last Life, Perspective
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JustRun said:
To me, trust is supposed to be consistent. There shouldn't be a gray area. It's when I find out there is that I struggle the most. I understand the feelings but I've yet to find a way to accept it. Here's hoping you get there.
- 5:16 PM
