In How We Trust
How my experience as a thieving five-year-old affected my view of trust forever.
My gynecologist hates me, and I know exactly why. I watched it unfold in real-time.
“Do you trust your boyfriend?” She looked up from her questionnaire, and her enthusiasm to help me was unmistakable. Her brown eyes glinted with the warmth of her sincerity; her clear porcelain skin glowed pink with it – a living “I’m here to help”. I would never see this look again.
My response was to laugh, hard and sharp – viscerally, from my core. That laugh ran so quickly out of my mouth and outside of my arm’s length before I could even catch its sleeve. “Not to manage my portfolio!” I joked.
And that was when I saw the disdain settle in her. As my laugh washed across her the face, I watched the slightest shift in the smile, the slight dimming of her glow. It was like talking to a guy at a party and watching his transformation as your boyfriend walks up. The smile takes up the same space on the face, sure, but it’s somehow cooler. More Myrtle Beach, less Miami.
I knew where my gynecologist was going with this question: 1) STDs 2) domestic violence. Something like 1 in 3 women have experienced physical abuse in their relationships. Syphilis was making a comeback. Neither of these are laughing matters and she had an opportunity to help on both fronts.
Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but laugh at the simplicity of the question. Could I boil down my trust for someone into one simple yes or no question?
I remember when I learned how complicated trust is. It was well before boyfriends were on my radar, probably around the age of five. I can’t remember all the details, but I know it was early because it sits in the furthest chambers of my memory – an early, transformative moment.
I had, for some reason or another, gone with my aunt to DZ – Discovery Zone, an indoor play center much like Chuck E Cheez, sans mouse. I’ll always think of it as a slightly weird place – my trust trauma notwithstanding. It was situated in a strip mall so my memories of pizza, arcade lights, and big ball pits with slides are also always permeated with furniture displays and suited mannequins – the backdrop of my walk to and from the parking lot. It was all too adult, too concrete for play.
I can’t remember why we were there or how long we stayed. That part of the memory is gone. The only part I remember is leaving. I had made it to the rectangle of sun on the floor that was made by the all-glass window when my aunt stopped me with one last task – I was to pick out any ball from the ball pit to take home to commemorate this otherwise unmemorable event.
When I think of this moment, I don’t remember a great deal of excitement. The ball pit was actually a bit anxiety-inducing for me. I feared getting trampled by socked feet or finding myself stuck at the very bottom amid the lost and found items that were sure to have settled there. Nevertheless, a free toy was a free toy and an adult was an adult, so I found my way back to the pit closest to the door and grabbed a blue one – my favorite color to pick when purple was not available.
When we got home, I showed my mom my paltry souvenir. And paltry it was – the “DZ” that was embossed in its face had the kind of deep nicks that make plastic sharp and the ball’s original shine had since been stripped by every disturbance in the ruthless pit. It looked shell-shocked. War-torn.
“Elizabeth!” she shrieked. “You can’t take those! That’s stealing!”
“You can’t take those! That’s stealing!”
Stealing. A mortal sin. My very first crime. I still feel a deep sense of shame anytime I think of Discovery Zone or those plastic ball pits. I hope my children hate both.
“Aunt L___ told me I should take one. I didn’t even want to!”
To my adult ears, it sounds like the world’s worst lie but I could remember the palpitations of my heart every time I flew off the end of that slide before I hit that pit, and I could remember the knot in my belly when I had to go back to claim my prize. A free toy is a free toy, but at the same time, this was hardly my first choice.
“She shouldn’t have told you you could do that,” my mom explained. It was Aunt L___’s fault and I was off the hook, but I got rid of that ball immediately and put my crime spree to an abrupt end. But still, this sat with me – how can one adult steer me in one direction and another steer me in such an opposite one? How was I – a child – supposed to identify moral failings of the relatives that I was otherwise supposed to trust?
My mother was quite vague on this point. I could trust Aunt L___, just not on things “like that.” My black and white world had suddenly grayed.
From then on, I learned to dole out trust in parts and pieces. In my younger years, it meant trusting some kids with my toys but not with my secrets, trusting my brothers with my games but not with my diary. As I aged, I learned that some kids could be trusted to buy beer for you but not to drink it with you, that some kids wouldn’t steal from you, but would steal from someone else. It wasn’t “trust but verify;” it was more like “trust but lightly.”
“Did I trust my boyfriend?”
So, when the gynecologist asked me that question, glowing rose gold in that pale blue exam room, I couldn’t help myself but to lash out at her with my laughter. I hadn’t outright trusted someone since the age of 5! Could I issue a blanket “yes” or “no” when blanket trust bumped so hard against my very core values? I didn’t even wholly trust myself – some people were simply more trustworthy in some areas of life and I had carefully cultivated a keen sense of when to fold. It’s a good skill to have.
Did I trust my boyfriend?
“Yes,” I said, once I realized her shift. For her purposes, yes, I trusted him. I trusted him not to demean me but certainly not to pick out my clothes. I trusted him not to steal my money but not to invest on my behalf. I trusted him to take care of our house but not to remember to water the plants. In some areas, trust simply could not be established; a few dead plants and a very ugly sweater vest prove that some things were just better left to others.
But my gynecologist and I didn’t have time to discuss these details. We had so many more awkward things to cover in the rest of the time we had together.
For more on trust:
This essay was jump-started by a writing prompt from Illuminate, a writing program by The Kindred Voice. This month, I’m joined by the following amazing women, each of us writing on trust.
My Superhero in the Sky by Sarah Hartley
the journal. by Eunice Brownlee
Pattern Making in Parenting by Laci Hoyt
Challenging the Relationship between Trust and Fear by Christi Hurelle