Hello? Hello? Is Anyone Home?

All right, I admit it. I have been avoiding the Blog. It's not that I have nothing to say, or that what I *do* have to say isn't worth blogging. It's just that . . .

. . . things are so different now.

In an nutshell, this is what has happened since my last post (cleeeeear back in February):

1. We did our taxes.
2. We cut up our credit cards. Every last one.
3. My brother was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.
4. We moved.
5. Massive self-abnegation ensued, followed by episodes of (dare I say) near-depression, finishing with a bit more self-awareness.

After all of this, I realized something about myself: I have a trust issue, people.

I don't mean that I have a hard time trusting others - oh no, no, nooooo. That would be too cliché. I actually trust people immediately and wholly, and apparently to a fault, because if they cross me - betray that trust - oh, dear. Trusting them again is very, very difficult. I will withdraw, avoid, backup, turn around...you name it. If it involves creating emotional distance, I do it.

I don't really like that about myself. I like to think of myself as someone who is forgiving and loving and all those other desirable virtues. But in the harsh light of the computer monitor, I realize that I am not as forgiving and loving as all that. With my immediate family, YES! Yes, I possess those traits much more. Perhaps because I pray for them consistently? I don't know. But with pretty much anyone else...not so much.

Now, don't confuse "not trusting" with "not associating". I would venture to say that those whom I no longer trust don't really know. I can like someone, but still not trust them. It's really a private feeling. However, during the course of #5 in the above list, it became evident to me that not being able to trust people was a downer.

When I say that it came clear "in the harsh light of the computer monitor", I'm not kidding! One night I was surfing around on Facebook. (Yes, I have been a FB junkie. But I've repented, seen the light, and made the switch.) As I looked at my list of "friends", I decided that there were just too many and I needed to pare down the list. I started sorting through the names and found myself hitting the delete button with a definite amount of passion and purpose. As I reviewed each name in my head, it didn't take long before thoughts like, "they never return my greetings in the hall at church" or "that person ignores me every week on the playground" or "that person is very rude to my husband/child/friend".

Delete.
Delete.
Delete.

I actually started to enjoy it. It felt somewhat cleansing. And vindictive.

Uh-oh. It's when those vindictive feelings arose that I discovered my trust issue. Not only that - it was mostly people that I only knew from church. See a pattern, here? Ugly, huh.

So that's what I'm working on. That is what has kept me from my keyboard, believe it or not! I suppose that my return to blogging is a sort of admission of moral defeat and a resolution just to get over it.

Any advice on how to resolve?