Trusting, part 1

I'm late today. There's a heaviness to me now that I haven't felt since Sandy Hook. While there are other things going on now besides Orlando, there were other things going on then too. Sometimes it just seems like a horrible world full of horrible people.

I am not ready to write about that yet, but something that I was thinking about writing can fit, and I am going to try and do that.

I have trouble trusting. That insecurity manifests in different ways.

Once upon a time when I was in a singles ward that had regular potlucks, it meant always having to bring a main course, and probably a dessert too. Some of that was feeling that I needed to do more because I was not good enough on my own, but also, that was not believing other people would come through either.

Those twin concerns (of me not being enough and of other people not being reliable) led to a really exhausting life of over-functioning.

I was once a big fan of the Xanth novels by Piers Anthony. In the first one, A Spell for Chameleon, the protagonist Bink - along with Chameleon - is stuck traveling with Trent, who was exiled for an attempt to usurp the throne and is now back in Xanth to try and win the crown again.

One night they agree to take turns keeping watch, and Trent easily lets one of them take the first watch and goes to sleep. Chameleon and Bink debate about how easily he trusts them. Bink thinks it should be easy for Trent to trust them; knowing that he is the crafty and ruthless one, he should feel safe from anyone else. Chameleon points out that dishonest people are always waiting to be stabbed in the back because they think everyone is like them.

We do tend to believe others are like ourselves. I have definitely noticed that people who are always criticizing the attractiveness of others are never satisfied with their own looks, and assume that other people are looking down on them too. It also works in that people can have a hard time believing that someone they know and like would do a horrible thing, because they can't picture doing it, so how could their peer? It would make sense if someone who was always looking for ways to hurt others expected similar behavior from others; it would at least make justifying the harmful behavior easier.

Based on that, if I believed that I could never do enough or be enough, maybe it made sense to expect others' efforts to fall short, but that wasn't exactly right either. I did think other people could be enough. I didn't think they would come through for me, because I wasn't worth it, but why shouldn't I expect there to be enough food for the potluck that they were also eating at? Well, that becomes a tangled mess.

In fact, there was a time when I had been happily bringing only one thing, glad to participate and not worried about others. Over time the population changed, and there was a different group with an unfortunate percentage who might expect to eat without bringing anything, or where we might end up with a lot of chips.

At that point, there was some realism to my concern, but still too much personalization of it. It didn't need to be my problem, except that everything was my problem.

Now I am more careful about accepting responsibilities, but I still have a hard time trusting other people to carry out theirs. Sometimes this is reasonable. Not too long ago I had asked someone to be responsible for peeling and separating Mandarin orange slices. This is not a hard task, but it is a pain and I had other things I needed to do. It was a big step for me to ask someone else to take the responsibility. That made it a big setback when I later learned he still thought I was going to buy the oranges and bring them to him, adding enough hassle to erase any possible good that would come from him doing the peeling.

And that wasn't even trusting anyone with my heart or dreams or feelings!

It's not just that people can be horrible. People can also be petty or lazy or clueless, and it might not always be obvious until it's too late. Over-preparing for potlucks and refusing to delegate tasks can be tiring, but they are minor compared to being able to let someone into your heart. I knew I was losing something valuable by what I had closed off, but there were still too many things that made trusting look like a fool's game.

I did eventually find my balance, but I'll save that for tomorrow. Do you trust me to do that?