Trust

trust / trʌst / [truhst]
–noun
1. reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.
2. confident expectation of something; hope.
 
I love this photo, it's called Friendship & Trust.  Someone recently said that, "It takes years to build trust and only seconds to destroy it."  Man oh man, have I let a number of individuals down in my lifetime.  People who should be able to trust me, I fear, have been let down.  
 
This getting older business...being able to recognize your flaws and feeling an intense desire to repair them is exhausting!  
 
Sidney Jourard, author of the Transparent Self, said that there are three ways we are seen.
~ The way others see us.
~ They way we see ourselves.
~ And finally there is the real you.  (Some would say that it's the way God or a higher power sees you.)
These perceptions share things in common, yet there are parts of you that only you can see, there are parts of you that only others can see and there are parts of yourself that are undiscovered.  The goal in life is to become one perception; what you see is what you get.  I feel like I am constantly discovering new things about myself.  However, it's only been recently that I've really taken to heart what others may think of me and how important it is to take that information and grow from it.  
 
One issue I desperately need to work on is being trustworthy.  It's not like I am this awful, dishonest being.  But there are times when I share more than I should, when I don't keep my word and when I don't meet the expectations set on me.  When someone has to say, "You can't tell anyone.  Really Ela!!  You can't say a word."  Or when I am counted on to remember a birthday, but I forget and give a lame excuse as to why.  You realize there is a problem and it needs to be fixed.  No more excuses.  The only thing you can do is change. 
 
I realize that at this point sorry just isn't going to cut it.  I realize that I am going to have to work hard, possibly for years, to regain lost trust.  Boy!!!  Am I thankful for people who love me despite all my flaws.  It's because of them that I don't drive off a cliff.  (Lol, one of my good friends from Jersey once said to a group of us, as she was driving, that she sometimes gets the urge to just swerve the car off the road.  Haha, you should have seen our faces of terror.  LOL, funny.)
 
Anyways, sorry for the rant!
 
*Picture taken by Shiv Photography.