Trustworthy

No one is beneath me. If I could just extrapolate and realize no one is above me either, especially when it comes to men… I might just attain enlightenment.

He even said that in a conversation, “I am not better than you”. Felt like he reached through the internet and lightly tapped my face with his open palm. I put him on a pedestal, the fact that he reached down to speak to me? Equal? Mind boggling.

But that is not what this is about.

I spent the first ¾ of my life not being the best person. I cheated, I stole, I lied.

The theft was the first to fall away. I had my son at 21, I didn’t want to end up in jail for a lipstick when I had a child depending on me to be with him.

The cheating stopped when I got cheated on within an inch of my life, and my reaction was to…cheat back? Survey says…Wrong answer.

The well from which I draw my kindness is filled with the shitty shit people have done to me, and the gut wrenching feelings I got from practicing acts of cruelty. Empathy is the filter. If it is within my power to save someone else from feeling that way, I will.

The lying stopped when I got caught. I spent a year forcing myself to make amends if I lied. Forced myself to accept the consequences. It worked, if I even feel a lie forming on my tongue I choke on it.

The result of spending 30 years being a rather crap-tastic human being?

I never felt worthy of trust. Worthy being the operative word. Truth be told, there is a part of me that balks when someone shows me trust…”don’t you know what I have done?”. They do. They also know I am no longer that girl. Internally I am still doing penance.

My trust for others however, has always been given freely, even after it’s been abused. I can never seem to remember the stove is hot, and I cannot imagine being any other way.

I started this by saying no one is beneath me. They are not.

I get my nails done a few times a month. I enjoy the hour or two listening to top 40 and the chatter of other women while getting fussed over. What I find odd though is how the other patrons treat the nail ladies. Like servants, barking orders, when did we all forget please and thank you? I am respectful to these women. They are doing me a kindness.

Yesterday I walked into my nail salon, it was packed. One of the women came running up to me, “oh good, you are here” she said, handed me her 6 month old son. There was a great shuffle and I ended up at the head of the line getting my toes done with this sweet baby boy cooing and drooling in my lap. The other customers staring at me, some random tattooed girl in a sundress…why did she get the baby?

I’m trustworthy.

A truth I never deserved nor held to be self-evident, but now that I see it and have it…there is nothing more sacred to me.

I was helping my girl move. She pulled a cake plate out of the cupboard, backstory being it is 200 years old, came over from Ireland on a boat with her ancestors, and she handed it to me? Aye, she did. She also trusts me with her 4 year old daughter and her husband.

My magic mama has never left her children with ANYONE not related by blood, except me.

He told me things he has never uttered to another soul. Said I could ruin him, and I could in theory, if I was anyone but who I am. He left me too, with this power, this evidence of what he is. He gave me things he does not take lightly, address, phone number and other secrets, I see them as the keys to his kingdom.
But he shut the door.
I can’t even knock, I will just wait for him to open up again.
So in awe of this trust he gave me, I cannot even breathe his name out loud.  I try to imagine being angry about this but I know, even if he splattered everything I ever said all over the internet, I couldn’t retaliate. I am not that girl.

I am the girl that holds these acts of trust, these children, the cake plate, everyone’s secrets and fears and protects them with her life.