what i want

(Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)


"We love you so much! We'll protect you!"

What else could one wish for, what more than love and protection could one possibly want? Well, I do want more. I want to be able to trust in that love and protection.

Like Oskar in Safran Foer's novel, my life isn't lacking in people who love me and care for me. What I lack is the strength and courage to believe it is true.

The factor is not whether or not the people around me are trustworthy or not, because I know most of them are. I have every reason to believe my friends and family when they tell me they love me, when they tell me they want to know how I'm doing. And still, it's the unsurmountable feat, my ultimate downfall, my lifelong struggle. I doubt, I run, I hide. I open up a little and then shift into reverse, for fear of - what, exactly?

Maybe the problem isn't my inability to trust. Maybe it is instead that I do not want to trust. Or maybe I just don't know how.

Trust is not automatic. Trust is not passive, and it is not up to choice. It is intuitive, but maybe not for me. And I am okay with that. This is my personal Achilles heel, having never learnt to allow myself to trust the people I love.

But just last Sunday, when I was feeling scared and sad in a panicky way, I reached for my phone and almost automatically called my friend. Intuitively, almost. Because I needed help and I allowed myself to ask for it. Because I trusted.