Putting Off
Trust
Jodi Helmer
workshops
Play With
Your Words
Writing Workshop
Magic Money
in issue seven
Scintillations
Alice Springs
Putting Off Trust
She
What Do I Know
About Trust?
Growing Into My Own
Bits of Trust
Slowing Down
Death of a Season
Trust Me, I Was Told
Servicemen’s
Camaraderie
Moody Girl
On Faith
Letters To My
Younger Self
photography
Leaves
Anna Giabanidis
Lemon Chillin
Brian Mayden
Steering Wheel
Julie Russell
Cover Outtakes
Scott Carlisle
Contribute to
Be Real Magazine
take me back
To The Cover
To The Contents Page
in
every issue
What Do You Think?
Subscribe To Be Real
future
issues
Issue
Eight: Power
Issue Nine: Humor
Procrastination
works for me. Whether
I leave dinner plans or a writing assignment until the last
second, things always have a way of working themselves out.
Or at least they did until now.
I’ve spent the last week staring at a blank computer
screen attempting to pull together intelligent thoughts, witty
insights or fabulous examples of the role trust plays in my
life. And I
can’t come up with a single intelligible sentence.
As usual I waited until the last minute to put my thoughts in writing for this issue of Be Real. I managed to meet the deadline, but even as I hit the ‘send’ key and sent my work out into cyberspace, I wasn’t happy with my efforts. My writing lacked the clarity, flow and insight that I am usually able to pull off in a personal essay. My examples were generic, my tone preachy and my thoughts jumbled. And it showed. When my writing came back for edits I wasn’t at all surprised to see comments like, “this section seems vague to me. What is your main point here?” and “an explanation here might help strengthen this section”--all valid points. But when I sat down to edit the piece I realized I couldn’t provide explanations or expand on my thoughts—because it simply wasn’t clear to me what I was trying to say about trust.
Trust isn’t something I think about. Or at least I hadn’t thought about it until now. And now that I’m confronted with the daunting task of trying to formulate my thoughts, offer examples of the role trust has played in my life, and really think about what trust means to me, I am at a loss for words.
After
countless hours of free writing and intense scrutiny, here is
what I’ve come up with—I need to consciously examine the
role trust plays in my life. It’s not enough for me to say I am trusting or trustworthy
(for the record, I consider myself both), I need to develop a
relationship with trust—an intimate relationship. I have no
idea where to begin, but I suspect that trying to lure trust
with a come-hither look and soft music isn’t going to work.
In order for us to become intimate, first we’re going
to have to get down-and-dirty and that’s going to involve
being honest with myself about my relationships.
When
I think about the people I trust—myself, my husband, my
parents, my best friend, my gynecologist, my
hairdresser—it’s easy for me to offer a laundry list of
the reasons I trust them.
It’s equally as easy for me to offer a myriad of
reasons I don’t trust statistics, the US Postal Service,
food labels, a lot of mainstream media, my math skills and
several ex-boyfriends. It
becomes difficult when I start to examine the relationships I
have that fall somewhere between trust, mistrust and total
ambivalence; the relationships where trust is missing or
misplaced and my feelings haven’t been confronted or
resolved. Examining
these relationships requires reliving past betrayal and
learning to start over again.
And I am afraid that may upset the delicate balance I
have worked so hard to create.
Somehow it is easier not to deal with trust because
examining trust also requires examining mistrust.
As
I write this, my relationship with trust is a bit ambivalent.
It is a lofty undertaking to begin exploring, and I’m not
sure I’m ready. Perhaps
if I put it off a bit longer I can trust the universe to
provide some answers. Like
I said, procrastination has always worked for me.
Be Real Magazine | P.O. Box 26606 | San Francisco, CA 94126
Copyright © 2000-2005 Be Real Magazine. All rights reserved.