I Can Trust Again

You don’t naturally learn how to re-trust people. It’s a skill, an elaborate task you must put all your thoughts and efforts into attaining. And, even when you do think you have learned the art of trust, only specific people seem to ever truly earn it from you.

Now, this skill isn’t easily attained. Your body and mind must genuinely feel as though moving on is something you are ready to do. Although your heart may feel ready, your body can’t be forced to sit down next to a stranger, and feel a spark igniting between the two of you. Your mind, your mind will wonder and refuse to allow your body and heart to make mistakes in moving forward. It will question, motives, incentives, morals of another human being. You want to touch them, embrace their warm skin next to yours, feel their hair lying gently over your eyebrows. The tiny hairs all over your body standing straight up as this stranger, whispers delicacy in your ear, while gently kissing your neck. It’s a feeling your body longs for, but your mind advises against. And it’s a good thing it does. Overwhelming thoughts and desires your body may feel towards a stranger, they can never compete with the knowledge your brain holds, and the ache your heart still feels.

You see, your mind knows what is best for you, your well-being, success, future and overall happiness. But your heart, knows what you want. And the desires haunt, and pull at the heart strings often causing an overwhelming sense of confusion. But you can’t help to be appreciative of the confusion, as it prevents you from loving too strong, and too soon. Sparks fly when you consider the hues of their eyes, and the warmth of their smile brings you a copious amount of joy and gratitude. The curve of their smile is tempting, and often, the temptation is given into. Although not a bad doing, your mind tells you to stay open, and keep your love to yourself for now.

They think you’re holding back. And it can cause stresses at the beginning of the life long relationship you’re yearning to build with this new person. But perseverance and patience are virtues. The mind often tells you to back up and stand clear, while your heart uses an almost unavoidable gravitational pull towards immersing yourself in this person.

Your heart uses an almost unavoidable gravitational pull.

They become all you think about. The text notification on your phone gains a whole new meaning, and the nights spent awake and alone seem numbered. Thoughts take over your fighting mind, and what once was an easy battle within yourself, becomes a daunting task. Keeping yourself clear of love, and more importantly heartbreak, isn’t as easy as it once was. Your mind tosses around the pros and cons to falling for this stranger, and suddenly there are so many more pros than you thought could exist. The idea of heartbreak is just that, an idea, and handling another heartbreak doesn’t seem so impossible. That’s given you even think about heartbreak. It seems so avoidable when you look at the overall picture, and for a second you think you have learned to trust.

They say all the right things. Never would they think about letting you down or leaving your side. But that’s what they all say. So once again, your mind takes over the whispers of your heart, and forces you to distance yourself from this person. Unknown to them, however, they assume you’re not interested, or that you aren’t looking for someone to give you love and attention. It isn’t their fault after all that you got hurt in the past. That’s how trust works. It isn’t the boy down the blocks fault that your trust for men is non-existent. But he takes the backlash of your broken heart, forgotten memories and he uses them to his advantage. He’s building trust.

Promises of never leaving fill the air. The new bond is unbreakable, and you’re given no reason not to trust him. He wasn’t the one that broke your heart and for that, for that he asks you to mend the pieces back together. The sound of shattered love doesn’t faze him, in fact, it draws him in closer. He knows you’ve been hurt, but he vows to tread with caution. He wants your heart kept safe, but more importantly, he wants to be the one to keep it safe, and locked away out of harm’s way.

His gaze seems genuine, his words echo through your mind, day in and day out. When he touches you, it’s warm, and loving, and always gentle. His hands seem to perfectly encompass the ridges of your ears, his thumbs running over the corners of your eyes and highs of your cheeks. He’s quick to dry falling tears, and even quicker to sense the sad tone of your voice. Perfection. We’ve been over what this feels like before, but this, this is perfection. He, is perfect. And now your racing mind is calm, you can breathe again. The weight on your chest is lifted, and the fallen brick wall no longer has leverage on your legs and arms. The pin in your heart quits twisting and turning, ending the cause to intolerable discomfort.

The color of your skin brightens, the musty hues plaguing the inside of the dark color, painted walls in your room is no longer, well, musty. But refreshing. The sunlight seems to find its way in through the black curtains you put in place to try to avoid happiness. A frown no longer has permanent residency upon your face, but in lieu a smile, one that reaches new lengths of the edges of your glowing gaze. Perhaps the most noticeable difference isn’t found in your appearance, however. Your laugh switches to two octaves higher, and louder, and more often. Morning runs no longer end in lifelessly lying on the ground, surrounded by trees in the middle of the woods, but leads to a fresh market just a few blocks down from where you live.

I never noticed it before. The market that is. It hasn’t been hidden from view for the past decade, just from my view. The world had gotten so small, confided, almost uncomfortable. But the universe I once could be found seeking safety within, was much broader. I didn’t rely on this universe to be a consistent but rather ever changing, and beautiful. Freshly picked flowers, they smell lovely. They smell new, and clean. Their colors are vibrant, blues and oranges and pinks, all intertwining with the vines, the thorns, the leaves. Pedals blossom every which way, with no true consistency at all. Something I had desired for such a length of time for in my world, was no longer a concern of mine, but rather an old, toxic thought, lingering in the very back of my mind. Rarely, if ever, did this thought come forward and claim me, victim. Instead the idea of consistency became boring, and repetitive to say the least. I was no longer drawn to the idea of fulfilled promises, but instead the risk of having no idea what would happen next.

Freshly picked flowers, they smell lovely. They smell new and clean.

I observed the sun. More specifically, the way the heat traveled from the sun down to my hands in the grass. My face felt as if it were burning, but there was a beauty in the burn that I couldn’t seem to look away from. The warmth didn’t lay on the surface of my skin. I felt it in my bones, my bloodstream, every organ of my body. And it, it was tempting me, to run, and jump and feel alive again. Its rays beat down on my body and tingled, as if they were dancing over my pounding heart, my wiggling toes, and my squinted eyes. The leaves on the trees swayed gently in the breeze, careful to never drop. They seemed to hold on, as if they liked being there, connected to that tree. Perfectly content with the consistency it provided in their lifestyle, but I agreed with them. I connected with leaves, what a silly thing to do. But I couldn’t help it.

The night brought new adventures, just waiting to be discovered in my growing universe. Shimmering snowfall appeared to be shadowed by the lightest blue I’ve likely ever seen. But it was a beautiful blue and white combination, and the slur of colors mixed perfectly to reflect the bright white of the moon off the snow-covered ground. Massive in size, the moon caught my focused attention. I couldn’t help but to catch the glimmer of the stars, overlapping the dark craters to bring a tint of light to any dark parts of the moon.

His smile has that affect. His laugh, hands, lips, his voice. He brings an undeniable light to a lot of darkness. It shines bright, as if the light was never dulled in the first place. Trusting him is made so easy when the universe is suddenly so big, as if the world wants to scream at you to open your eyes to what you could have, but your mind is finally just getting on board. Not so fast, world.

Your mind is still confused. That just seems to be a new feature, but it isn’t all that bad. The new wonders of the world have brought scents, scenery, emotions, all to the surface of your thoughts that your mind wasn’t necessarily experiencing before. The differentiating temperatures at times of the day, the way the sidewalk steps up at areas, the overgrown grass in the neighborhood park. There’s a new way to look at your expanding world and the mind, well the mind doesn’t understand that quite yet. But the heart, it knows what it wants. And suddenly the drive to be with him grows. Desires to touch him, hold him and kiss him, grasp his face between your palms and get lost in the depths of his eyes seem increasingly impossible to pretend don’t exist. And that’s okay, because the walls in your room, they too are ready to heal and trust.

I could close the window again, the last two inches that it wouldn’t close before. Breathing is no longer toxic in the atmosphere of my bedroom and the walls nearly reach the ceiling. My light has restored full brightness, and even shines just a little brighter. The pills on my nightstand have been replaced by chocolates, candles and paints. Although still present, the hole where my heart once lay peacefully, has decreased drastically in size and no longer aches and causes discomfort.

I guess you could say I re-learned to trust. It grows within yourself first. Confidence, beauty, an open mind. Trusting is the ability to love yourself first and have enough confidence to know that you are enough. I am enough, and I am confident of it. Love is the only accurate adjective to describe my traits, personality, desires in life. The market air is fresh and more importantly, existent. Stars shimmer and the snow glistens as it hits the ground beneath the beaming moon. But the next day isn’t greeted with dull hues and sadness, instead warmth and sun. The stranger who stole my heart, my life, energy and smile may have never returned those possessions to me, but a new stranger replaced them with theirs. Their own universe to share once again with myself, a new world to gain ownership of, was presented to me by a new person, my new person. And for that, I will not apologize. Stranger.