Today, Month 8 starts anew for me. I was to take another mini vacation in Tahoe, but the storm over the weekend made me rethink all things I would like to and should do, being very alone. I decided to sit this one out and decorate for Christmas. I hadn’t decided on my monthly word until last night, when it came to me. Trust.
VST was not a trusting man. He was kind, insightful, and brilliant of mind. He was empathetic to a certain degree. Artistic, knowledgeable, and skillful in a multitude of areas. But, he was not a trusting man. That was destroyed on a Labor Day weekend long before I met him. I can honestly say, me being trustworthy to my soul and the true love of his life, even I never gained his full trust, as his injuries went way past those humanly repairable.
VST was street smart. He would always shake his head when I trustingly went ahead believing all kinds of things.
“Darlin’, think it through. It might SEEM like that is the way it is, but, what about…….”
He would be off and running to discredit liars and cheats we met through our decades together. Sadly, he was always right. Not 99% of the time. 100% of the time. And slowly, I stopped trusting many things myself. I just knew, I could and would always trust him with my life.
If VST told you he was going to do something, it would be done. If he said he would be at a certain place, he would be waiting. Goals and accomplishments set were completed with results exceeded.
In the 1900’s, when we were new, he explained something to me. Life was full of all kinds of people. Some were obviously in need of avoiding. Do that, he would tell me. The obvious ones, steer clear at all costs. We both agreed that was a good thing to do.
Then, there were a group of people that seemed nice enough. They weren’t robbers or cheats, but they were just those people that we wouldn’t ever really get to know very well. Nice people with nice lives that didn’t affect ours, they would never really be close friends. And, whatever situations they found themselves in, although we would listen, maybe even tearfully, they would remain just acquaintances.
Our inner circle was golden. True friends that we would go to war for or with. Some family fell inside that circle while some didn’t even make the first cut. And so, the Circle game began. By the end, he could just draw a circle on a napkin and we would immediately break into laughter, without anyone else even beginning to know what the joke was. Either in the circle or out of it.
Today, my innermost circle is void and empty without VST. We twirled and intertwined our Yin and Yang, contrary or opposite, and yet complementary, interconnected and interdependent, according to Hanyu Pinyin, a concept of dualism. That bubble of creativity that was us was unstoppable, or so I always believed. I never thought it could vanish into cancer. The place I am having trouble finding TRUST again is in that Yin/Yang center, finding opposing parts of myself to fill the void. No one else can do that for me. Without my own center balanced, I have little to offer to another. A mission set up for failure.
I am so blessed with those in my inner circle. The very BEST FRIENDS IN THE WORLD. OLD FRIENDS, AND NEW OLD FRIENDS. They call, visit, console, recommend, laugh, gasp, hold me, and are along for the ride. They are the ones I can trust to tell me when I am on the road to Crazy Town, and when I am on the right track. They tell me what I don’t want to hear when standing around the African Watering Hole. They remind me that I need to read my own blogs every day, and nourish my center. I love them for that.
VST taught me a lot about trust. He taught me that trusting another is the comfort that we all want and need. He taught me that a life without full trust is troubled, no matter how good things may seem on the outside. He reached his hand out to me during the last days of his life, showing me how far he had come on his journey. I treasured his trust more than I have any other person in my life, because, it was so hard for him to give.
I am trusting myself enough to know driving on ice in Tahoe for my first lesson in snow is not a great idea. I am trusting myself enough to know that the Veteran’s Coalition is going to be a great group in which to share my talents. I am trusting myself enough to know that things will get better with time, self love, and care. And, I am trusting myself to know that I am an intuitive judge of character, and that it’s okay to think about what my future could look like down the road.
Today, be grateful for those that have your back during this the darkest of times. They can see what we cannot at times, due to widow’s fog. Trust that they love you and will help you get through the wilderness on the way back home.