Writing Under The Willow

The most important password to us isn't the one we use for Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, or any other networking site. It is the password we hold within ourselves that we aren't even aware of most of the time.
Trust is a very important aspect of companionship. We yearn to gain other people's trust but we can sometimes be very wary about giving out our own. There was a time when I thought that everyone was my friend. I was so willing to open up to people because all I wanted was to be able to confide in someone knowing that they cared. However, there is a fine line between people who care and people who are curious and this is was very much a blur to me. Without a password, I allowed everyone to enter and expected that everyone would be genuine enough not to abuse my automatic trust given to them, simply because they acknowledged my existence.

The sad truth is that life doesn't work that way. You meet people who only want to know about you so that they can gossip to someone else. You meet people who will take your kind heartedness for granted to use you for their own personal gain, then when you are in need yourself, they act like your superior and pretend that they were never grateful to you for anything so that they don't need to get their hands dirty. It can be a cruel, cruel world out there, and more often than not, people learn this the hard way. I know I did.

As a result of this, we tend to lock ourselves away for safe keeping. We can be so afraid of what other people think that we stop being ourselves. So much so, we need to build up our trust in others from scratch, and this time the process takes much longer. Sometimes we can even push the ones we should trust away, because we don't know what to believe any more. If someone wants to find the key to your trust, they're going to have to work pretty damn hard to get it.

However, some people can't quite comprehend why it is so difficult to decode and have access to someone's intimacy. It all depends on that person's previous experiences. For example: it's often difficult to accept compliments, because in the past they have been filled with sarcasm; or when I managed to achieve something that I never even imagined could happen to me, but then someone else spoke about my achievement to others with a bitter taste in their mouth and degraded all my efforts. It's not as if I sabotaged anyone else, I put blood sweat and tears into that goal and I wasn't even allowed the recognition for it.
Another example would be when I poured my heart out to my "best friend" at the time, and then later in class she blurted out everything I had ever trusted her with even when I begged her to stop. She didn't. Instead she just laughed and continued to proclaim my life story to the thirty kids in the class, who all turned around and actually listened to her. That was my breaking point. The one person I trusted had shattered our friendship in seconds with no sign of loss or remorse, and of course, the news spread. I had a lot of people approach me later on who had heard about me crying, and some decided to ask if I was OK. What appeared like the more important question posed however was what happened. Considering I never really spent time with the people who were constantly asking me, and it's not as if I didn't have a friend already with me who I could talk to, I figured that I was only being asked out of curiosity, and I refused to talk about it further. It was time for another password change.

Now although there can be hackers, and sometimes you need to reset your password, there can be very authentic people out there, and it is a beautiful sight and a wonderful experience to fall in trust with them. You just feel so connected to that person. From tears of joy to tears of devastation, they are there to share those moments with you and not judge you for them. The password exchange is a very gradual transition yet one of the most worthwhile ones. They don't spread your secrets (unless it is in your best interest to tell someone else), they accept your flaws, they revel in your best moments with you and actually have the ability to be happy for you, just as you would for them. In addition, give and take is equally balanced without the expectation of getting something in return, it is an act carried out purely by their kindness.

You know you've found a true friend when you give them the ability to log out, yet they choose to stay connected to your heart.