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Trust? No. That’s not a thing I do.

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Trust, I’ve decided, is an odd, odd thing. If I’m being honest with myself, I don’t think it has very much to do with the other person at all – not when you’ve been lied to as much as I have. I think either you have the capacity to trust in people or you don’t. I suppose people can earn your trust and prove that they deserve it, but if you’re not the kind of person to freely give it, it’s going to be a fight on their part regardless.

Now, let’s say something breaks the fragile trust you’ve managed to build up. Doesn’t matter what it is, if it really happened, if it’s true, it’s the perception of trust that matters.

It’s the perception of anything that matters. No one cares about what is actually going on. It’s how the thing is perceived within their own minds and their own hearts. How does it affect them? How does it make them feel? Fuck the truth. Fuck the reality of the situation. But I digress…

So, the perception of trust is gone. Maybe just in one certain situation. Let’s say you no longer trust someone with driving your child around if they’ve been in a wreck, or you no longer trust someone with money if they’re constantly overdrawing their account. Have you lost all trust in them? Is the entire perception of trust gone, or just in those areas? And what is an acceptable demand post-loss of trust? Is it acceptable to demand changes of behavior? Is it acceptable to give ultimatums for your own sanity? Or should you just wash your hands of a situation that will never, ever again be the same?

I don’t know the answer here, I’m asking. Asking you guys, asking the universe, asking myself? I don’t know. But I’m asking someone. I’m pretty close to giving up on the human race, in general, as a species, so any advice is appreciated and welcome.

I Am Grateful

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I did a series a while back called The Litter Box Trials – An Experiment in Gratitude. Those posts can be found here, should you be interested:

The Litter Box Trails

The Litter Box Trails – The Ugly Truth

The Litter Box Trails – The Struggle Continues

The Litter Box Trails – The Final Scoop

Living In Gratitude: Most of all, be thankful

From ‘gratitudehabitat.com’

It was all about how my cat has super nasty poo, but I’m still grateful for him and how that could translate to the rest of my life. Fun fact: That same cat has developed diabetes and I have to give him insulin shots at 7am and 7pm every day for the rest of his life. Fun.

With Thanksgiving a day away, the disintegration of my marriage, looking down the barrel of some financially-tough months and a budding relationship that has reminded me how good being in love can feel – I thought it was time to refocus on all the things I have to be grateful for. It’s a lot. I have a lot to be grateful for. So why is it oh so hard to feel grateful?

One of the great human tragedies is that we are continuously focused on the bad things. Even when we don’t want to be. Pain is a stronger emotion than joy and this is by design, I’m sure. Pain is the only true motivator in life, the only thing that brings about real change. It should be the strongest emotion we have so we don’t stay stagnant in our lives and actually get up and make some shit happen. But it’s so easy to get lost in pain and feel sorry for yourself. It’s so easy to wallow, wonder why, what’s wrong with you, what’s wrong with them. It’s a barrage of questions no one has the answers to meant to drive you further and further into your despair, thereby defeating the purpose of this primal emotion because we’re now paralyzed with a sort of psychosis where we’ve invited this reality in which we clearly have it worse than anyone else on the planet. False. So False. Especially if you’re reading this on your smartphone in the good old US of A. We’ve been taught to revel in this pain. Hallmark made cards. People wrote self-help books. Pain and sadness became an industry and is perpetuated, if not encouraged, in today’s society. Am I off base here? Do you guys see this too? What a crock of shit. What we need are people to say to us:

“I’m so sorry (XYZ) has happened to you. You’re a lovely soul and I can see that you’re hurting. But you’re not going to lay here and feel sorry for yourself, because that’s not helping anyone. You’re going to focus on all the good things happening in your life and all the things you have to be grateful for. You’re not going to worry over things that happened yesterday or things that may or may not happen tomorrow. You’re going to get up, do right by the ones who’ve done you right and kill it like the boss you are.”

That’s who we need more of. The tough-lovers, the realists, the assholes. I’ve been taught many lessons in my life but the one I’ve most used is that perception is reality. Your world is what you perceive it to be, which just means you can choose to be in a good place. You can choose to be happy with what you have while you work for what you want. You can choose to see all the good things he/she does, instead of focusing on that one thing he/she said/did a zillion years ago/yesterday. You can choose to see the good. But you have to actively make that choice. And it takes a strong, self-aware person to choose to see the good and be grateful. I want to be strong. So I’m still working to choose to see the good and be grateful. I’m not a master, by any means. I fail all the time. But I won’t stop trying.

Today, I hope you see all the good things in your life. Today, I hope you stand tall and feel grateful for all the blessings in your life. Today, I hope you’re the strongest mother fucker you’ve ever met.

Happy Thanksgiving.