The value of trust

The value of trust.  That core essential quality one must have in so many different avenues of life.  This quality in which we look beyond ourselves, placing belief in something or someone else.  This ability to go beyond our comfort zones, placing faith in something or someone else.

Trust is more than believing in someone else.  It is allowing someone to enter your life, enter your heart.  It is allowing someone else to know your inner thoughts, your deep secrets, and sometimes, most importantly, your inner most fears not known by the world.  It is allowing your heart to open in ways never before.  It is allowing this one person to know you in ways so intimate, you never knew you could share things without regret.  Trust in someone else is allowing their influence as a stamp upon your life.  Knowing they will be there when push comes to shove.  Knowing they will stand up for you, protect you from the outside world, shelter you from pain, and be truthful in their intentions.

In many ways, I have lost this essential quality.  I have lost that ability to allow someone into my heart without always wondering if they are going to hurt me.  I have lost that ability to believe in what they say as truth.  I always question if they are being honest with me, or only being as honest as they can at that moment in trying to not hurt me.  Sad.  It effects aspects of my life in dramatic ways.  In my professional life, I worry that what I am being told about my work performance is not actually the truth.  I wonder if sharing my thoughts will lead to being viewed as weak.  I worry that if I share an idea, it will be swept up and used by someone else.  In my personal life, I worry that when someone tells me they like spending time with me, are they only saying this to ease my anxiety over relationships?  When they say they want to spend more time with me, then have other things occupy their time - are they seeing someone else?  I wonder if when they say they care about me, are they saying this because they want to be with me, or is this yet another way to kindly brush me off into the sunset...

Right now, there is the core of my own fears with trust - what is perpetually wrong with me that this same scenario keeps occurring over and over...why do I allow people into my life that only end up hurting me in the end?  Yes, they may have been trying to protect me.  Yes, they may not have meant the pain in the beginning...but they all seem to have the same results.  What is it about me, Ruthe, the person that I am, that allows this to happen time and time again?  In all the situations I can think of, I am the common bond.  I am the common bond to those that have hurt me.  I am the common bond in failed relationships, in failed friendships.  It cannot always be the other person.  What is it that I need to change to establish the value of trust back into my life?  What do I do that creates such results of pain in the end, and why - WHY - do I tend to repeat these over and over again?

In the end, and as of right now, the only people I can truly trust include the members of my family and a select number of friends I have known over the course of decades...there may be a sprinkle of those newly introduced into my life I can trust, but overall, I am dismayed by how little others have treated my life, have treated my pain.  I am dismayed that those I confided in would share my hurt with so many others.  And for what?

I constantly am second-guessing myself within the past few months.  I can only work from what I am told, and if what I am being told is only half truths, how can I form an opinion or decision that affects my life correctly?  I constantly am looking for signs that those around me are not being 100% truthful, but just truthful enough for them to consider it as not lying outright to me.  I worry that what I share with others is not remaining between the two of us, but rather shared with the world, and others around me are talking about my life as if it were front page news.  Some of this is justified.  Some of this has actually happened, and it is always painful to find out later that what you thought as truth, or what you believed is not true.  It is painful to realize that those closest to you are actually making you fodder for their conversations with others, all the while saying they do not want to get involved.  If you didn't want to become involved - why bother sharing my life with others?  It is painful to realize that all you have worked for and towards is not the same goals as others had.  And while you were busy trying to make decisions based on what you knew, you later find your decisions were incorrect due to half truths, cover-ups, and everyone else knowing what is actually going on.

I am constantly wondering in new relationships I form, be it friendship or of the romantic pursuit, is this person going to do the same thing?  Everyone is unique, not everyone is aiming to hurt you.  Sometimes they are not even aware of the pain caused until it is too late.  Sometimes they were actually attempting to protect you, but in the meantime hurting you more due to the run-around.  Will those I allow into my life in the future do the same?

The value of trust...I hope one day to have this quality reinstalled within my life.  I pray one day to have a relationship where I do not question his intentions, or if he is providing me only half truths.  I believe one day that when I share my deepest of thoughts, or the pain I am feeling, it will not become fodder for everyone else in the world to know without being uttered from my lips.  I hope one day that all things that have caused me to write this post will only be a distant memory - something that is hazy, something that seems more like a terrible dream I had rather than a constant theme of my daily life.  For the meantime, the hurt I feel seems to influence me to protect my heart, protect my thoughts, and protect me hopefully from future tears.