In my last post, I talked about not having a past.  I am envious of the people who can just forget and move on, because forgetting is hard for me.  I am a  dreamer, and I have trouble remembering facts when my  mind is on some reminiscent stream of consciousness.  With Nick, it’s even harder.  You see, Nick was good at lying.  When we first met, I used to call him a salesman.  He was so good at words, great at making people like him, and involved as an onlooker to all drama.  This is me realizing it now of course.  At the time, Nick could do no wrong.  I watched him lie to his friends, lie to his team, lie to his mom, and lie to me.

So why did I ignore it?  How could I trust someone I witnessed lie over and over?

I looked up the word “trust” to see what the word is actually supposed to mean.

noun: trust

firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.

• “relations have to be built on trust”
• acceptance of the truth of a statement without evidence or investigation.
• the state of being responsible for someone or something.

verb: trust

• believe in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of
• allow someone to have, use, or look after (someone or something of importance or value) with confidence.
• commit (someone or something) to the safekeeping of
• have confidence; hope (used as a polite formula in conversation).
• place reliance on (luck, fate, or something else over which one has little control).
• The word is beautiful.  If you talk about it like a thing, it’s a result of a firm belief of reliability.  It requires knowledge, acceptance, wisdom, and care.  “I trust you because I believe ___.”  If you have trust, it it the result of two choices: the choice to trust, and the choice to trust yourself on the decision.  When you trust, you are giving permission to someone or something to become believable.  You allow a person or idea to become believable and can commit to the truths with confidence.
• I thought I trusted Nick, but knowing what I knew, I can’t say that I fully had that feeling.  I searched for validation in it’s antonym.

noun: doubt

• a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction
• something that is uncertain or that causes one to feel uncertain

verb: doubt

• feel uncertain about
• fear; be afraid of
• be afraid of (someone or something) as likely to be dangerous, painful, or threatening

It seems to me that doubt isn’t so much the opposite of trust, but a barrier to it.  The uncertainties I felt did make me ask questions at inconvenient times, made me worry when something didn’t add up, and made me skeptical when I should have trusted.  If that was all, our relationship would have ended when I caught him inviting girls over that he found on a dating website three months in to our relationship.  If that was all, our relationship would never progressed to the point where I was willing to transition my life to the east coast when I have no desire to live in a tundra of snow and snobbery (no offense).

It didn’t end there, because I realize I am the opposite of trusting.  I said I don’t think doubt is the opposite of trust.  Doubt is necessary to have trust.  I think it’s important.  It’s important because it gives you the confidence you need to make a choice and believe something.  No.  As much as I hate it, I think the opposite of trust is fear: the fear that your choice is not the right one, fear that your decisions are wrong or will lead you in the wrong place.  Fear means it’s easier to rely on someone else to make the decisions you can’t make.  Fear was setting aside what I knew to be true because I didn’t trust myself to commit to that belief.

Instead, I let fear get the better of me.  It was easier to trust in a lie than risk the reality of the truth.  Did I know I was putting off something inevitable?  Probably.  But it’s amazing how easy it is to ignore what you don’t want to see.  The problem is that the Universe favors truth, and it seems to me that it is always uncovered in one way or another.  When I found out he cheated on me, I said I was surprised, but I wasn’t really.  When I found out the other stuff, that, for the sake of the others involved I won’t talk about, I felt like I was reading a story about a different life.  But it wasn’t a different life.  It was the life I had chosen to live because it was easier to live in the dark.

There are no mistakes in life, only lessons.  I believe Nick taught me a valuable lesson: a lesson in trust.  The heart rejoices in truth and is strained without it.  Through my doubt, through my choosing to ignore my instinct, through my fear of decision making, my heart was broken.  I know now that if I had trusted myself I would have saved myself heartbreak, tears, and a lot of sleepless nights.  I would have been okay, the way I am now, but it was too easy to put it aside.  I chose to hide with a closed heart of fear and insecurity than embrace the life meant for me.  I have learned my lesson, and now I must rebuild.

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. — Buddha