Learning To Trust ... Again

A friend was telling me yesterday how a vast collection of rare books he had spent years putting together, with love, care & dedication, was destroyed in an importune fire. As I was reading his account of the disaster, and how the aftermath had affected him in such a way that he simply couldn't make another attempt to start collecting the kind of books he appreciates & treasures, I could actually, physically felt his pain of the great loss.

The irreplaceable value of the collection is not even just the heartbreak, but the despondency that you feel for always, at the sound, sight or image, even the mere mention of whatever you have lost. I understood & felt his pain because I had the same experience years ago, losing my most beloved procession: a collection of family photos, totally void of value to anybody, but for me my only treasure. I had mentioned this, not in details, in one of my earlier Blogs.

 

Unlike most people, I have no siblings, no aunts or uncles, never known the joy of being indulged by grandparents, nor played with cousins, nephews or nieces; my parents were all the family I had. Since their passing in my late teens, my family existed only in those pictures of them, of my childhood, adolescence & added on later the record of my career as a fashion model and a teacher of English, some with my students too.

Like my friend, that's why I lost interest keeping albums of photos. The few of myself posted here were not lost because they were rejects (model agencies and clients have the sole right of the photos they chose for commercial use, not the model). The irony is that these reject prints are still with me, thrown about any old how around the house.

 

The story how the treasured memory of my life in print was a very sad and unforgivable betrayal of somebody I mistook as trustworthy. Like the friend who told me about his books & how he couldn't bear to keep a single one since, I stopped trusting anybody for a long, long time and this distrust of people has marked my life.

The disappointment and wariness of mankind is very mentally and morally damaging. I have been making great efforts to restore my faith even though the learning process is slow. I need to believe that I can eventually come through, winning.

Tag: photoalbums, betrayal, trust