To Trust Again
It was a warm afternoon in sunny Bali, Indonesia mid 2010. The salt in the air was on my lips as Daniel kissed it off me, the hot breeze on my skin cooled off by the touch of his cool hands on my side as the warmth of his body was on my back. We stood there in silence as the waves nudged my knees in the water. The silence was broken by a soft whisper, “I love you,” in my ear.
His voice so soft, the breath on my neck taking mine away. I believed him. We’d only been together no more than a week, but I believed him. It was something in the genuine way in which he conducted himself, a sincerity in every word, every move. I was trusting even though I had not been trusting for more than eight years since I was raped. I was trusting even when just two years ago I was physically, verbally and emotionally abused by a man I thought loved me. I was trusting even though I didn’t trust all those men whose beds I shared all those months before meeting Daniel. I trusted Daniel.
In that moment and with the few days we had between us, I believed he meant what he said and I believed he wasn’t a man to throw words like that around.
There was an energy, there was a calm in my heart as there was a calm in the ocean that told me I could trust this feeling. His chivalry at dinner caught me off guard, no-one had taken so much care for me to move the chair for me, or paid attention to what I liked and didn’t like to eat. No-one had ever asked me what I was thinking as I was staring out into the night sky ,”Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it just wonderful how we are such a tiny part of the world as there are stars scattered in the sky?” His answer so quipped was perfect in that moment, “it is.” Those two words stole my heart as I realized how much I was valued for the unmasked thoughts in my mind. I felt my heart open up and I trusted him. With the next wave on my shins, I responded, “ I love you too,” and I could trust again. The years of pain I decided was finally worth the leap. I trusted myself to trust again. A world I had never imagined was about to be opened up for me.
That trust wasn’t a mistake, I had finally found truth in the universe, one that held me up through my drowning bouts. I had trusted and lost before, I didn’t trust myself nor anyone around me but this time I listened to a quiet voice, not masked by fear nor anguish, a voice so clear not masked by the past nor future expectations, there was a voice within me that spoke with such clarity I recognized it as my own.
I look at us eleven years down the road and am thankful in those moments with Daniel all those years ago, a voice spoke to me from within giving me permission to trust again with no assurances of its yield, just a leap of faith in my inner voice, my inner truth. For a novel space in time, I heard myself.