11.17.22 / 11.19.22

“It’s not easy for me to depend on other people,” I said.

“I know,” she replied.

I trusted you first with my time.

A date at a local cafe I found myself holding some sense of safety at. A large table stolen for the sake of two – for you and I. I sipped on my tea and watched you enter and there was something about you, something in the way you walked, in the way you held yourself, where I knew I was hopelessly smitten. 

I trusted you with my home.

A sanctuary built out of strife, designed to house me, to shelter me, and no one else. A couch made for one. Stairs designed for my gait. A kitchen modified to my specifications. I let only a select few through those doors. And I unlatched the deadbolt for you.

I trusted you with my mind.

Nervous as I was, I endeavored to be myself. I stepped forward with as little masking as I could manage, until I could manage to go without it completely. I let you see me. And you stayed the night.

I trusted you with my body. 

A kiss. Searching hands. The tender way you undressed me and ran your fingertips along my skin. I remember watching you, heart pounding, worried you might not like something, worried I might do something wrong. You dove between my legs, and wiped clear the anxiety from my mind.

I trusted you with my heart.

I told my therapist I was falling in love. I fretted it was too soon, that I was foolish, that something was wrong with me. I feared you weren’t where I was, that you did not perceive me in the same way, all while I held a key to my home clutched in my palms. You had given me one to your home. And now, weeks later, I made a copy of the key to mine. No one else had a key. No one. And here I was, about to give one to you.

I trusted you with my safety.

We began to live together. I sought your presence often, found solace in the way you held me, in the way you listened. I curled up around you at night, and snuggled close in the morning. Never before had I felt so comfortably protected. So gently loved. So wanted. 

It was not until recently that I realized I was holding back.

As a child, I had to be independent. I needed to grow fast, to learn faster, to build up my skills before I found myself left behind. Aren’t you old enough now? I would hear. Why can’t you do this by yourself yet? 

The urging to mature settled in, perhaps for the better, most certainly for the worse. I scrambled to become an adult, even as naivety kept me from understanding my body, from understanding my mind. I must take care of myself. That’s what I was taught. I must never rely on anyone else, because people will let you down. You must only rely on god, and your own strength of will.

But without god, with a deity that has abandoned the world and abandoned me, what more do I have? 

And so I hoisted that burden upon my shoulders, and carried into us, carried into what we have. I must rely on myself. I must not ask for help. I cannot trust anyone to support me. To love me. To care for me. 

Only after a few months of living together did I realize you’d exposed that burden for what it became: a tumor, a malicious growth, a weight that would crush me and consume us. As I struggled to relax in the certainty of your gentle caring protection, I kept myself from fully letting me be me. From relying on you. From trusting you. 

This could not stand. 

With scissors crafted of willpower and dogged determination, I began to cut the straps that held this to me, sawing away thread by thread at the distrust and fear that burrowed into every avenue of my being. I would trust you. I would relax with you. I would allow myself to feel safe and cared for by you, and – perhaps most importantly- I would learn to rely on someone other than myself. 

The weight is thick, and my scissors can only cut so deep a wound each day. It will take weeks. But I keep at it. Morning by morning, step by step, I shall learn to trust you with my reliance, and in that, learn to let myself be vulnerable in a way I never have been with another person. 

Yesterday, I trusted you with all of me. And while I am still practicing this act, you saw me, and you held me, and you kissed my brow and whispered you loved me.