what is trust if not Clay Aiken persevering.

I’ve found it difficult to trust anyone since my first love lost it all. It was 2003, and he was Clay Aiken. The pain of his second place American Idol finish left me reeling. It set the stage for a devastating string of losses, beginning at my eight birthday party where I barfed all over the carpet and my guests ran from my house screaming. Real friends would have stayed.

In all seriousness, trust is a motherfucker. It is hard to believe in the same people who allowed a talent like Clay Aiken to come second after such an enthralling performance of Piano Man. 

Reality shows aside, It is hard to trust when you’ve been given a lifetime of proof that people will let you go on hurting. 

The only thing I’m certain of trust is that it cannot exist in a vacuum. Seems obvious but let me explain: you have to be hurt to be able to trust. Silly as it sounds I’m pretty sure I’m right. 

It’s complicated. Being rejected and hurt and cast aside; being cheated on and lied to and fucked over; these are results of caring deeply. These are results of being vulnerable to a point where the mistreatment of the person you are feels bad or wrong. You’ve let yourself be seen, truly. It’s hard fucking work. It’s punk as hell.

Not to get all Brenee Brown–cause Jesus I don’t know if she says anything other than “vulnerability”–but if you let yourself be seen that means you have a self to show people. You made a whole fucking person and you did it all with an IUD. Fucking wild. 

I used to call it “grace”–holding myself up in the face of fear or rejection or hurt. I used to think I just needed to be poised and careful–that if I was to avoid the pain of being left standing alone, I needed to pick and choose what I let people see. I had to choose my words carefully–I had to be x weight and x size–I had to watch others closely. What a crock of shit. 

Trust, I think, has almost nothing to do with other people.

You know what you believe–if you don’t think you know, you’re wrong. That’s okay. I’m wrong all the time, it’s totally cool. You know why you do the things you do, and why you are the way you are. I know sometimes part of who we are is hard and scary and the result of trauma–see a decade-plus of an eating disorder–but what is in our control, is in our control, baby. 

We make decisions all the time, trying constantly to get closer to these things we believe in. I believe, say, that literacy is important–I’m trying to become a teacher. Or I believe, say, that I’d be a really sick frontman–I started a punk band. I didn’t start a punk band but that, dear reader, is irrelevant.

We are doing the absolute best we can with what we have, even if what we have is very little. 

So, knowing this. Knowing that we are trying our fucking best, and trying all the time, we have the knowledge that we are creating a human inherently worth something. We are creating a human worthy of kindness and love and honesty. All people. Always. We are all doing this. 

This is trust I think–knowing that we are always acting in the best possible way we know how. That when we are standing alone in vulnerability, we stand with every decision we’ve ever made–good and bad–and let people look. We know why we’re here. Blacked out in a bathtub–we still know.

Then, the choice is no longer ours. Other people’s treatment of us is not a reflection of the person we are, but instead, an indication of the beliefs that they hold–the ways that they have learned how to be in this world. We know why we’re here, and their treatment of us can be beautiful or feel like shit. Doesn’t matter. We already know why we’re here.

Trusting others to see us, really, is trusting ourselves to be constantly moving towards what we know is right. Which we are, even in spite of ourselves. Even if we lay in bed all day for a week because we are sad and scared–we are preserving and persevering. 

And, dear reader, what is trust if not Clay Aiken persevering. 

I love you so much.

See you next time.