Friday, July 17, 2009

Who to trust?

There are the moments in your life when you wonder who do you trust? Who do you trust with your innermost feelings when simply uttering a word will reduce you to tears?

Which friend do you pick to share the disappointment of your day or the shock of learning that people can be cruel? Who do you burden with the thoughts that you can't make exit your head without articulating them with words?

In a day in which feeling pursued delved into simply disappointment that being a decent person is not enough to shelter one from accusations that can not be disproven. But it is in those moments that you learn how true friends can come through. Through the fog of lack of function you see people sympathize, tell the truth even when the truth is not being sought, and take you into their home to feed you and build you back into the one who laughs.

The friend is the one who sees past the outburst of angst to the terrified skittish thoughts you are trying to mask... past the appearance of strength to the truth. Being competent and functional is not enough to protect one from false accusations. But it is enough to have people who trust you, who believe your word... even when they are not the deciding factor in the final say. The true final say is between the universe and I. As I try to pursue "do good defeat evil" and for the greater good of the order I have found my zealous spirit flagging. I finally felt like I rediscovered the zeal for life and instead I got knocked off my trail. But I will pick myself up, I will dust myself off, I will brush the gravel out of the scrape on my shin and stand firm.

I will look for God in the small things once again and say my prayers hoping that God sees my future in a similar way. For we pray not to change God but to change ourselves.

And in the end it is the ones we trust to hug us at the end of the day- the ones who hand us a book from the Dali Lama at the end of the night titled "The Art of Happiness"... I will stand tall because it's the right thing to do. I will resist because by giving in we validate bullying and that's wrong if you are 5 or 45. But at the end of the day the measure of how I'm doing is not my OPM file but the friends whose child wraps her arms around my middle upon seeing me with a grin across her face. While I look forward to enjoying my tasks and rediscovering my passion again... well in the meantime this journey has taught me what true friends are and what is truly important in life... the hikes, the amazing vistas, the books that soothe the soul, and most of all the love that pervades this life in so many ways and iterations.

It's been a hard week, I need to pack, and this is Sierra Point typing something that I could not keep contained in my head. Good night.