The Word of the Day is “Trust”

When we think of the word trust the first thing that comes to mind in a relationship is “can I trust you”… Monogamy… Honesty… Contracts like marriage. Promises and vows…

Will we fail to keep our vows? Will we cheat? Will we break rules and promises? I think the answer to these questions is laughably no… Of course we won’t.

So why is “trust” the word of the day? We don’t have trust issues rocking our relationship. We both know once trust is broken in such a way it can be proven, there is not way to patch it up and fix it. A true broken heart comes with true broken trust. It’s a contract written on a piece of paper, once trust is shredded you can try to tape it back together all you like but it will never be complete again, it will not be valid again, and it will not look as clean and beautiful again. Neither of us would cheat… Neither of us would lie… neither of us would hide from the other. Why would there be a need to steal something when we both give anything and everything willingly? Really we have no reason to not trust and be trustworthy.

So what about the other meanings of “trust”? Even though I have written paragraphs about the other definition… Joel (the name I have given my conscience since I was 5 years old…) didn’t start talking about trust at all in this way when we heard the word of the day… Joel, if you recall, is forever my accountant… Forever crunching numbers… He showed me images of money… At his desk in his suit, with his green accountant’s visor… he is always running the numbers… My trustee. My accountant of the love bank in my heart

We have a joint love account my Freyja… It works just like a bank account… Every day we make withdrawals and we spend our love on things we want from the other… We both make deposits into this account by earning love. We earn it with little words and works and actions we give freely… We make deposits together when we are alone and looking in each other’s eyes and talking and laughing and sharing, opening up to each other about past pain and healing one another by saying “it’s okay to be exactly who you are”. We earn love when we sing and dance for each other… we earn love when we enjoy each other’s company. We earn love when we accept the others flaws instead of demanding change.

Then we can even make love… We merge our bodies together, and through this act of absolute vulnerability, we give ourselves to each other completely… We used to make love every day, you and I… and it helps to fill our love account.

Then we sometimes ask for something the other doesn’t want to give we make withdrawals. We lose love fast in these moments, we bleed it out, and the longer we spend love the less we have in our bank account. Our account depletes, and when it becomes overdrawn we both imagine the other leaving it behind… When our love account is in the negative we know we have to love hard just to get back to feeling okay and at peace… We both blame the other for spending it all so fast on something so frivolous… How can we respond in these moments??? When we both just want to take from the other, and neither feels like giving? Can we find common ground… can we find a Bodhi tree to sit in the shade and just hold each other until our ledgers are no longer in the red? I hope so… usually an escape, separation from all our stresses, like our trip to St. Augustine… usually those fill our account and once again allow it to overflow. Fighting certainly doesn’t help.

But then I stop to think that when one of us withdraws a huge sum, the other could have added to the account instead of beginning to race to spend it all as fast as possible. When one takes the other gives selflessly, stronger and harder, works faster, earns the love as fast and fiercely as they possibly can until the other notices. This is a sprint… It’s not easy at all… It hurts and it’s hard… I can hide until the waters are calm, and try to give you little signs that you are safe and home. We can’t go forever without being exhausted. But we are both strong enough to do it in times of need.

There will be times when one of us makes huge unexpected withdrawals from the love account… Sudden anger, sudden fear, sudden misunderstandings. Attacks from hot buttons pushed accidentally that just dump love right out of the account and flush it down the toilet… It is the job of the other to see there is a lot of love left, that we can always earn more, we can always make more, we have the only currency we need to make love… time

There will be times when one of us will ask to make large withdrawals… When one of us says “I would really like you to do this for me” and the other will be afraid, or worried. I will do it though, I will get in the hot tub that is too warm and wait for my body to adjust… I will do that for love… There are times when I may ask you to join me in something that is too cold… and you will have your rules and requirements but you will agree to let me make this withdrawal. Blind faith… it’s hard, and it’s scary, but I have never let you down… ask for what you need… and you will have it.

We must remember that this belongs to both of us… Once our love is pooled we both earned it, we both made it… We cannot make loans of love… We cannot write IOUs… We cannot say “If I spend love on this, then you get to spend it on that later”… This makes love a tool, a weapon… This is OUR love, it is not currency it is not a tool, and once it is used as such, it becomes blood money… tainted by pain and requirement… Tainted by the heaping on of pressure that this “must be permanent and perfect”… Nothing is perfect, not even love because we channel it from perfection and filter it through our fears, doubts, worry… through all the unfounded defenses from our past. We become prostitutes… love whores using tricks to get more love back than we are willing to put in… Everyone on earth does this… At some point believing we are entitled to being loved exactly the way we want. Some believe we are entitled to always be right, which is impossible. We can’t use love as a bribe, or withhold it like dangling a carrot on a thread to make a horse move. We should never withhold love to force the other to act. We never cut up each other’s cards and deny access to the account. ALL of it belongs to BOTH of us at all times just like the money I earn in my job… It is shared. So we can’t use it against each other, and if we try, we will split the account in half and break the entire point of having it in the first place (both real money, and true love work this way).

We also must always keep this account operating in the positive when we can… We will fail often to do so. If the account goes into debt, and we allow it to continue to sink farther, we will find ourselves in a place where no matter what we do, we are living in the red… Stressful… Angry… Resentful… fighting. At this point one of us may think it’s easier to declare bankruptcy in love, and walk way… but that results in no love, instead of the love we could be making. Even though it feels easier to check out, declare bankruptcy and start over… we will find ourselves alone in the dark at the bottom of our coffer and we will not be able to climb out… that is what divorce is, always… The account we thought was empty, was no where near, and we recognize that the moment we separate for good. It’s not a way out of this trap, it’s a way to swan dive into a far worse one. Alone in the dark with no light to shine a way home.

What about the third kind of Trust?… A trust is a legal account that belongs to you, one where I can deposit freely and often tax free, the trustee then takes that money from me and it becomes the personal belonging of the beneficiary… you… I can no longer take that back from you, it is no longer mine to take. It is saved only for the benefit of the one I am building the trust for. We each should have a trust fund of love for the other… Murray and Joel the trustees (Murray the voice you named your conscience)… we should save extra love every day in this fund for the other as sole beneficiary… How do we deposit into this account? It’s easy. We save memories that we never allow to be tainted or taken back… I remember the moment you told me “they didn’t try to make you normal, they tried to make you mortal” – I remember it over and over… I recite it in my mind when you tell me I am “brighter than the sun”… I realize that what was true will always be true… Those moments are truth, and I always remember them and store them in your trust…

Leu Gardens,
St. Augustine,
Taking the street guy’s guitar and serenading you,
Sebastian sitting in my lap just a day after we met,
Sabrina playing breakfast a week ago,
Desire Cancun,
Your smiles,
Your laughs,
Calling me your “King”,
Word of the Day,
Hard Rock,
Blue Man Group,
Dancing Together even when there is no music,
The look on your face when i first played and sang “Blackbird” for you,
Wiping clouds away at the resort,
My birthday ,
DRIP,
Walking in on awkward conversation, (“so the last thing I remember before the Ruffies kick in, is this woman sticking feathers in my butt one at a time”).
Bruce and Selina at Hibbachi (when we pretended to tell the story of Batman and Catwoman as how we met, at a shared table).
Our first weekend in that hotel listing to every sad love song and realizing they were written just for us

This list could go on and on for days on end… I hold these in my trust whenever you are out trying to find yourself, there is a sign that says “gone to find myself… If I should return before I get home, please wait longer”

We do this for those days when one of us is sad and struggling, so that neither of us needs to fear being weak. We can’t spend our lives walking on glass and eggshells. Joel will allow me to give to you from this account on those days… All he does is remind me of the trust I have of your love and gives that trust to you… Murray will allow you to give to me from your account that you hold full of moments when I proved I love you, you must always trust those moments… You find in some moments of calm, that realization that I am exactly the man I say I am and always have been. These moments of clarity where you can’t find an example of when I didn’t do what I promised… You look at me with these piercing eyes and say “You are the man you say you are”, as hard as that is to believe sometime when trust fades.

The key is to hold on to those moments as they pass. Remind ourselves of all the amazing good. Of all the laughs, of all the perfect little moments. All we have to do is recognize they are real. We don’t ALLOW those moments to be taken away by doubt no matter what, and we have an ironclad safe for our love. They were all true and faithful moments of real love… Because they were true in those moments, they will always be true when we look back. In all those moments you gave me strength that no one ever has before, when you shined your light brighter than anyone has before. THAT love doesn’t come from our account, it comes only from me remembering that you loved me once… And what was true will always be true, time cannot remove moments of love even if it can make them hard to remember when times get rough. We trust love, and when we need it, we can use trust… the account I can’t take back from you, the one I store all those amazing moments of us in. From deadpooling in Cancun, to proposing on that skydiving observatory, to sitting down in 3D Maya and designing your ring you won’t take off your finger (unless it’s to put on the silver and sapphire one I made for you to travel with).

When the rains come for me (oh and they will), I need you take from my love trust and give it to me… trust my love… Pull out all the extra love you have in these moments just by remembering, just by believing in us… This account will allow me to give you un-punished moments of weakness… moments that we instantly let go of as they pass. If we see hurtful words as a cry for “I need to withdraw some love from the trust”… We don’t need to protect ourselves from the pain… we can sit, and quietly listen… If we manage these funds well, and remember, with every show of unconditional love that is given the love itself can go into our joint account and in the back of our mind we store the memory as truths in our trust fund… So that when we are sad, or weak, and turn on each other… I can grab onto knowing you love me.

This extra account is vital reserve strength… We can never allow these moments to be taken away, we must TRUST THEM… We must not break the trust or all these memories can become tainted… And when we fail to earn enough love, when we fail to make love enough, when we withdraw too much love… when we deplete our joint account… We must say “I need you to trust my love for you”… We will never be bankrupt again.

I think Jason Mraz said it best:

When I look into your eyes
It’s like watching the night sky
Or a beautiful sunrise
Well there’s so much they hold
And just like them old stars
I see that you’ve come so far
To be right where you are
How old is your soul?

I won’t give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I’m giving you all my love
I’m still looking up

And when you’re needing your space
To do some navigating
I’ll be here patiently waiting
To see what you find

Cause even the stars they burn
Some even fall to the earth
We’ve got a lot to learn
God knows we’re worth it
No, I won’t give up

I don’t wanna be someone who walks away so easily
I’m here to stay and make the difference that I can make
Our differences they do a lot to teach us how to use the tools and gifts
We got yeah we got a lot at stake
And in the end
You’re still my friend at least we didn’t tend
For us to work we didn’t break, we didn’t burn
We had to learn, how to bend without the world caving in
I had to learn what I got, and what I’m not
And who I am

I won’t give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I’m giving you all my love
I’m still looking up
I’m still looking up

I won’t give up on us
God knows I’m tough, he knows
We got a lot to learn
God knows we’re worth it

I won’t give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I’m giving you all my love
I’m still looking up[?}