Trust

Trust is an interesting thing.  It's vital to any successful relationship, be it a parent/child, friendship or romantic partnership.  It often takes time to build and can easily be crushed in a heartbeat.  For me, I lost the ability to trust in life the moment Dr. Way Too Chipper told me James was gone.  How do you trust again when everything you knew to be true was gone in the blink of an eye?

I wasn't a very trusting person before.  I'm slow to trust but very loyal once I do trust someone.  I am finding it so hard to trust an anything now, however, even three years after James' death.  I'm trying but I'm still afraid this new life I have built for myself will also be gone in a blink of an eye and I'm just not sure I can handle that happening again.  But living in fear is no way to live either.

Lately though, something strange has been happening.  I let Guy Pal drive James' car (with me in it, of course).  Actually, it isn't so much me letting him as much as it is he somehow manages to commandeer it and I don't stop him.  I don't know that I'd let him drive my Lancer, however, but I wouldn't even let James drive it and I was going to marry him.  (His driving scared the crap out of me.  I once asked if he had a death wish, it was so bad.  Kind of ironic he had his heart attack while driving home).  Last weekend, Guy Pal hosted a fundraising dinner for another friend of ours at my house.  I had a volunteer project so I just gave him the garage code so he could start cooking.  I gave him access to my house with me not home and didn't think twice about it.  Saturday evening, we made plans to go see a matinee on Sunday.  I woke up yesterday and realized I didn't know what we were seeing-we'd talked about a couple of movies we both wanted to see and he just picked one.

I trust him.  It's scary but also a good thing.  It's good to know I still have that capability-that maybe I'm not completely broken after all.  But at the same time, there is a part of me that wants to push him away-to keep him at an arm's length.  I was telling my widower friend about this and how fragile it feels.  But it's also encouraging.  Maybe if I can get to the point of trusting someone new in my life with my (larger) material possessions, one day I will be able to trust someone with my heart.