My best friend sent me a quote during my last big break up, trying to make me feel better. He wrote:

Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life… You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like "maybe we should just be friends" or "how very perceptive" turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love. - Neil Gaiman

Normally, I don't like to talk about love, pain, hurt or the one touchy subject for me is trust. I mean honestly, I look on Facebook and I see everyone with their bright happy families and their year old marriages, and I just think to myself...well fuck I will never have that. I am truly happy for those who find love, I just don't understand it myself, to be honest, AND what I don't understand I try to rationalize. I just don't get why someone could trust another person with a joint checking account, how could you trust a man not to leave you in 10 years for a younger woman, how does a man find value in taking care of a woman so she can stay at home with her kids. I just do not get it, because, in my world, I prepare and expect the worse. It has proven useful to expect everyone to treat you like garbage over the years for me. In my career, it has given me a competitive edge and in my personal life, it helps to soften the blow when someone completely devastates you. It is kinda hard for anyone to earn my trust and even when they do a tiny little bit, well I still expect them to let me down in every possible way. The only person I can trust and rely on is myself.

Now I bet you are thinking, wow such a pessimistic view...I am the opposite *most* of the time. I am very happy with how my life has turned out. I have lived an exciting and fulfilling life so far...I have had many great experiences and I have great and loyal friends who push me to be a better person. Most of the time I wish my romantic love life could be like my strictly platonic friends...but alas letting someone that close to me is terrifying and dangerous. At least it feels that way for me...I guess you could say I am terrified of love. I lay awake at night wondering how people ever fall and stay in love...how it must feel to trust another human that much you would spend your life with them.

I was watching videos last night on Facebook thinking about these questions and I came across this video of Will Smith. In that moment I felt like he was talking directly to me.

"In one second, you realize it's the most blissful experience of your life," he says in the video from Goalcast. "You're flying, there's zero fear. You realize at the point of maximum danger is minimum fear. Why were you scared in your bed the night before? What do you need that fear for? Everything up to the stepping out, there's actually no reason to be scared. It only just ruins your day. The best things in life are on the other side of terror. On the other side of your maximum fear are all of the best things in life." - Will Smith

I realize I am just tormenting myself holding myself to unrealistic goals and aspirations...which is ironically is holding me back from emotionally trusting anyone. Why am I so focused on the end when I should be focused on creating memories in the now? That is how trust is built, that is how life is created, that is how people fall in love and stay there. I am sure it isn't going to happen for me. To be honest I don't care because I have a full life now. But maybe my thoughts can help someone else. I am not sure.

So I will leave you with an inner look into my sad little world:

I’d love to trust a lover to just care for me without needing to control my every thought and action. I’ve found that the less you tell someone about what you need, the less information they have to control you. I know I’m staying inside my shell and I’m probably missing some possible closeness, but I guess I’d just rather be alone than let someone know who I really am. Every time I’ve let a partner really see what really make me happy or sad, he for sure will use that against me later when he want’s something I can’t give him. I can’t risk that potential for emotional blackmail. It’s just easier to stay unknown. - Unknown