Strands of Trust

Trust begins as a thread of glass. The smallest, most fragile glass your mind can conger. To compare it to a strand of silk, torn from a robe or that of a spiderweb, would not only be too cliche', but also inaccurate.

You see, the web of a spider can be repaired and the thread of silk can be re-tied.

But the long, slender, fragile length of glass that represents trust, shatters into a thousand pieces and cannot be repaired. Sadly, it takes very little in these formative stages, for this shard of trust to disintegrate as if it never existed. It falls into darkness and dissolves there, never to be retrieved again.

This, however, is only how it begins. Begins as a small strand of fragile glass from one heart to another. Sometimes, of course, the strand never forms. The trust is broken before it is even created.

There is really no limit to the number of crystalline strands of trust one can have, although some do intersect and combine.

As time passes, this fragile strand of glass trust, thickens with consistency and patience; love and attention; compassion and caring.

As this happens, this strand of trust strengthens more and more. So that slight transgressions might create hairline cracks or cause little chips in what is now a thicker band of  glass trust. Fragile, but still in tact, if just a little worn.

As time continues, this trust begins to calcify and what was once smaller than a grain of sand, just like that grain of sand slowly emerges and evolves into something larger, harder and less breakable.

The difficulty and problem with this is that trust can be built - albeit with some hard work and a lot of patience and "I'm sorry's" - but then, when one who has calcified that trust, who has built a solid, sturdy band of trust, hurts you deeply, the trust won't break. And so you keep allowing it and allowing it and allowing it. You must deserve it, right? After all, this person built this trust. I know this person. They wouldn't hurt me unless I did something wrong.

This trust - this solid, calcified trust - is toxic and painful. The reverberations this band of trust echoes, shatter other, small, fragile forming bands on trust - the ones as thin and fine as a hair.

Trust is fragile. Until it is solidified. Then it is destructive.