BY PAMELA JO BOWMAN-MESA ARIZONA –“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough” Frank Crane

Valentines day. Do you remember passing out valentine cards in class and wondering if you would receive a card from that “special” someone? Kind of silly really. Everyone in the class passed out cards to everyone else. Everyone signed their names. I would look to see if there were any subtextual messages in the handwriting. Would they write from or love. Would they glue on a candy heart with a message? Would they write my name on the card?

That is when the nervousness started for me. Wondering, worrying, wanting to be connected to someone who wanted to be connected to me. I decided early, for whatever reason, that I could never and would never trust anyone completely with my entire being. I learned very early the lure of the unknown. I learned later to be known and still loved swells the soul and releases reason. It is still silly and I am still anxious to see what card or cards I might receive.

“The key is to get to know people and trust them to be who they are. Instead, we trust people to be who we want them to be- and when they’re not, we cry.”

Perhaps the key is to find those people who we can trust so we can be who we truly are. Instead we act the way we believe others want us to be. We still cry.

Still silly.