Trust is snow falling silent into the sea

I was recently challenged to come up with my definition of trust. The following is what I wrote in a stream-of-consciousness moment:

Trust is snow falling silent into the sea, is freedom uninhibited. An opening, a space. It is being vulnerable in front of an Other without feeling vulnerable. And without seeing the Other as so masked, so distant. It is the readiness for being vulnerable, too.

Trust allows for intersubjectivity on the confidence of subjectivity. Open. I can relax and not fear terrible repercussions. A small sense of belonging to something greater than oneself, and that the belonging is okay.

Trust is a moral prejudice, wrapped in inequality. A gossamer blanket.
Trust is not evergreen, is eternal.

Lost trust is angry tulips streaked with blood, and is easy to walk into.

Practical trust erodes emotional trust. Why? Why can’t I keep these separate? Why is the practical primary? Why does trust feel so though and sometimes unconvincing?Where’s the line between breaking boundaries and breaking trust? Where is the line between acts of trust and tests of loyalty? When you are hungry and sleepy you trust no one and nothing, for everything is choreographed to destroy.

Mistrust is vulnerability, fear of vulnerability. An open scab on toast. The apprehension that someone will utilize pieces of yourself against you. That you will hurt the person in some intrinsic way. Mistrust is the jauntily clad and quiet discord. Is unexplored color. Feels unceasing.

To move from mistrust to trust (in Self or Other) is a dangerous liaison, a flicker. Involving a leap of faith, a letting go of the belief I must earn my time to be with people, that I have to give back to them at least as much as they give me. Mistrust is a release of the defenses to many to even name. A loosening. Letting in the fact that perhaps self-worth isn’t tied up in intersubjectivity alone.

This is hard though – life is too complicated for reductive generalities. There’s beauty and relief in ambiguities, where the rain jumps back before being soaked into the ground. Trust in self would be believing this in terms of my actions and behaviors. For someone to trust me they’d have to be soul-blind, broken on the shards of experience.