Broken thoughts (some of it)

Recent events that have happened and the interactions with people in my life, both new and old, and particularly a person whom I've had grown quite close to, have made me ponder and scrutinize the meaning of trust and the nature of relationships. What is trust? Does trust require one to be blind and to ignore all the failures?

Desmond told me a few times before that he noticed in me a kind of phobia to commit because of my innate love for freedom and hence explains my odd "disappearances", my moody moments, my quiet moments when I tend to shrink into myself and be very non-communicative. Or, on a lighter note, the times when I'm engulfed in a burst of inspiration to do (or to simply have an idea of) something unexpected, bizarre, wild, adventurous, or even dangerous. He also said that my reluctance to commit could stem from my contention with trust. Trust issues, yes.

Recently, he became a little worried when I told him that through my reflections of the brief interactions with Leopard J, particularly the difficulty with extricating myself quickly from the quagmire, I am no longer that confident in my ability to ward off illicit relationships. Because in some relationships with others, there exists a grey area that bridges the Black and White in a subtle blend. I don't feel so righteous anymore and therefore I cannot judge so easily like before. I can no longer call these people stupid from higher grounds.

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I don't believe the world has only one soul mate for one person. I don't believe there is "The One" out there for each one of us. I believe that when you find someone and you like the person enough, you make the choice to make each other as soul-mates. Thus, you can make many such choices and have many soul-mates. But for that one person, a spouse, a lover, a life-partner, fidelity is both a choice of one person and a choice made together. Fidelity is about trust, and trust is never complete in its first days of exchange, no matter how good you feel about it. It takes a lot of effort, in the form of communication and sharing of everything of yourself-- the good, the bad, and the ugly; through heart-wrenching tears and teeth-grinding anger and flesh-tearing fears; through confusions and uncertainties; through deepest purest joy and peace; through hope; through God.

Trust must be nurtured constantly and it must be ever-growing.

So how can this relationship or friendship with this person flourish if the nature of it breaks trust? How can one trust a person who is capable of lying so well? How can I trust myself who is capable of dishonesty and white lies? Well, I can't. We can't. I don't think  anyone can. And that's where faith comes in. It's not blind. It's to see the vulnerability of humankind and of every relationship; and to see that everyone is capable of darkness and in the best of relationships, to embrace the darkness and invite God to help us help each other understand ourselves fully and to deal with it in a way that God sees it as good. I believe that that God puts us in relationships and communities because we cannot heal on our own. We need each other to live with our darkness. I don't think we can ever get rid of it. It's wishful thinking to say that we can live without our darkness because in a strange way, the darkness attracts us.

'Cause we need a certain degree of darkness to see the stars (or aurora borealis)?
(My other on-going question: why are we created with darkness, only to repel it?)

Faith is not to avoid fears. Faith is to have the courage to look at dishonesty and lies in the eyes and say "yes, I'll try again to use love to be honest"; faith is to have the courage to trust each other to work out the kinks again and again after each failure; faith is to believe that God will provide even if it's not really seen yet.

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Right now, I live in an extremely funny state. I am both happy and sad; hopeful and pessimistic; confident and doubtful; courageous and despairing; pleased and ashamed ; contented and regretful; holding on and letting go. And the list probably goes on.

I pray that God will continue to grant me His grace, mercy and peace.