Whom do I trust?
By: Olivia Th
Tags: Relationships, Poetry, Storytelling, Trust, Friendship

People need people. People need love, touch, companionship, a shoulder to cry on. Yes, thousands of years of evolution and we still can’t get through life alone. We go to kindergarten, build our first friendships, and then school…New memories, new friends, some drama, some tears, but in the end of the day everything is experience. By the time we start university we know ourselves more or less. Or we just think we do. We think that we know our friends, we can tell apart good and bad, and we can definitely see through people. But guess what? You will probably be 40 and still learn, still face betrayal, still wonder about people. So did my mother.

My mother lived majority of her life in a small town. Everyone is like a family, where everybody knows each other, where everyone has got each other’s back. But you can’t help but wonder when your back relies on someone else. What if? What if this person is holding a knife, and in no time the knife will be in my back. Well, at least that is what I think, because I am a GenZ who has got lots of trust issues. My mother didn’t. She has a colleague, a best friend, and they knew everything about each other. Spent summers together with families, helped each other in hard times, and 25 years later, my mother’s best friend turned completely against her. My mother likes to say that “ she finally showed her face after 25 years”. Even though, the reasons why she did some bad things to my mother, and my family in whole, are still unclear to me, the whole thing shook me to my bones. She was a family. And you should be able to trust the family.

A less shocking, but still unpleasant story has happened to my close friend as well, very recently. Imagine you are going through some very hard times, in a different country, you are broke, there is a pandemic, and the only thing you can hold onto is your friends and their support. And let the world kick you in your balls as much as it wants, at least you have got good people around. Right? Well, not always. That friend of mine found out how some of the people she considered very close have expressed their complaints to others, less closer to her people. And while that less of a friend can blame you in things, can try to bring you down, but you should be able to count on your friends to get your back, right ? Well,she thought so too. And then, when all the bullshit went down, she asked me “ So, whom do I trust?”. Honestly, that is the most difficult question I have been asked in a while. And I told her “You never know” (as a traumatized Gen Z, yet again).

You can’t exactly go through life without trusting anyone. That would drive you crazy. You can’t be a paranoid person, wondering what is your partner doing right now or with whom your friends are hanging out with. Do you have to just trust your gut feeling? The sixth sense. Your heart. Your brain. I honestly don’t know. Should you keep an arm’s length distance from everybody? That will just make you lonely. What I think, you, me, we all should do, is just learn to accept betrayal and grow from it. Learn to trust people, not everyone, just the ones who deserve a shot, and if things go South,just accept the things the way they are. Accept the responsibility. You are responsible for your choices in life, and even though someone betraying you is not your choice, trusting them was yours in a first place. Therefore, accept your actions and what they bring, and enjoy life while you can.