Expansion of Trust

Have you ever noticed that when you take those first steps to trust someone just a little more than you have previously there are still those odd little woodpecker type butterflies in your stomach? OK, maybe not *everyone* gets them, but I do. It almost never fails they appear when trusting someone, even someone I have trusted for years, just a little more happens.


It is almost like walking down a familiar path you have known a long time and then discovering a deer path you didn’t see before and being brave and following that one day just to see where it leads you because you know the area around you so well you know you aren’t *really* going to get lost and you also believe that if you don’t show up in a few hours people who love you will come looking for you and will *find you*.

Maybe this is because I grew up in the mountains and you were taught to explore, but you didn’t go out further until you knew where you were like the back of your hand. You didn’t explore further until you knew how to get back to where you were, and if you got lost, well, you stopped and waited for the grown-ups to come and find you. This didn’t mean you weren’t scared or lost none-the-less, it just meant once you realized what had happened, you stopped and you waited.

No, I was never lost because I was too sick to explore, but I knew many who were lost and they waited just as they had been taught, and they were always found. The grown-ups always followed the paths they had taught the kids to take first, and then expanded their searches, and the kids were always found.

Things became more tricky when the kids got older and the explorations got wider, but by the time the kids were older, let’s say the kids were teenagers, their interests were in cars and other teenagers and by then they themselves were helping look for other kids or for tourists who had managed to get themselves lost in the woods, or National Guardsmen who had managed to separate themselves from their units, etc., etc…. I wonder if it still exists, this exploration and the trust kids of the mountains had/have in their parents and the other older members of their society.

Trusting is always dangerous, exciting, and scary. I have to remember to do it more often. I just have to let go of the vine in mid-swing and grab for the next vine and move forward. Swinging is fun, but if I don’t move forward I am never going to advance! *smile*