Trust Me

My mother told me never to trust a guy who says, “Trust me”.  At the time, I was maybe thirteen years old and there were not a lot of guys trying to tell me anything at all.  Of course, by the time a boy finally told me to trust him, I had fully resolved not to be an idiot and do it. 

Rejecting the “trust me” guys proved to work in my favor.  I learned that if a guy had to say it to begin with, I was obviously showing him that I thought he was full of it.  And if my first, gut reaction toward someone was to distrust him, then it was for a good reason. 

Since then, I have rarely trusted anyone who told me I should.  This goes for wannabe boyfriends, friends with scheming ways, anyone who said, “No, I didn’t drink that much.  I can drive fine,” and every car salesman I ever laid eyes on.  Many times, it kept me from getting screwed, either literally or figuratively.  No ill-given trust meant no regrets later.  This is not to say I never made a mistake, but usually my mistakes have happened because I made a poor choice, not because I let someone make one for me. 

Here is the problem.  I trust people who never ask to be trusted.  The usual scenario begins with someone telling me some confidential piece of information about their life.  People tend to do this often.  It could be something that simply makes them human, a small fault that seems massive in their own eyes.  Other times it is a serious secret.  I have held onto pieces of information that could ruin lives if shared.  If I were the kind of person who liked to destroy lives for fun, these secrets would give me the fuel to do so.  Instead, whenever someone has let me in their confidence, which happens more often than not, I give them a little something of mine in exchange.  The more they tell me, the more I give back.  Sort of a tit for tat, to let them know I would never hurt them since if I did they have something with which to burn me back. 

Recently, someone I really, truly trusted lit some serious sparks that pretty much set my ass ablaze.  The arsonist did not even bother to use the fuel I had readily given to her.  Instead, she lit up others with straight up lies.  My attempts to put out those fires were met with further fanning of the flames.  I was burnt to the ground. 

So, should I turn around and pour kerosene on her life and light a match as revenge?  My first thought was to do so; to do unto her what she had done unto me. 

That is not how it was meant to be.  That bridge has burned, and although I did not come away unscathed, I will live.  Yes, I might be more reluctant to give out my stories and secrets.  No, I do not want the people who still love me to feel like they cannot trust me.  My behavior in a bad situation shows what kind of person I am. 

I do not want to have to say “trust me”.  I want to be the kind of person who shows others that they can.         

Trust me, this is what I have to do. 

So Look

There are times when I doubt.  I doubt myself, my path, and the choices I have made.  I doubt that things will work out just the way I have convinced myself that they should be.  I doubt that I am doing the right thing.  So, I look down.  Then suddenly something will enter my vision, and that something will be beautiful enough to make me look up. 

Today I took a canoe trip down a clear, gorgeous spring fed river with my family.  My husband, my father and my daughter took one canoe.  My son, my mother and I took another.  Since none of the three of us in my little boat had experience paddling a canoe, we smacked into a tree within about five minutes of take off.  No big deal, but admittedly frustrating enough for the three of us to panic for a moment and then bicker about who had caused the crash. 

I looked up and saw a family of turtles sunning themselves on a nearby log, and the happy little sight of them brought me back to seeing what was important.  There I had been, worrying about something trivial, something of no consequence.  Then there I was, seeing the beauty of nature and realizing the significance of family, of being together, of the way things are and are supposed to be.

Life takes us through amazing things.  We approach something new with excitement and wonder, but also with trepidation and fear.  Sometimes we crash.  Sometimes the consequences of making a mistake are trivial, and sometimes they can be catastrophic.  But I realize that if I had not made those choices, or if the good and bad things that have happened to me had not happened, I would not be exactly where I am right now.  I would not have been here to see the beauty that made me look up again.

We can choose to keep looking down, or we can let ourselves look up and find the beauty.  So look.  Look around you.  There is love around you that you have neglected to see.  It is very possible that you have not paid enough attention to the good and beautiful things in your life as it is right now.  Whatever magnificence you see when you look up would not be there if you had made another choice.  So look up and see the exquisite life you have at this very moment. 

The possibilities for noticing beauty are everywhere.  Look for it.  See it.  Feel it.  Breathe it in.  And when you find it, you will see that we are where we are meant to be at this moment.      

So look.