Everyone suffers at least one bad betrayal in their lifetime. It’s what unites us. The trick is not to let it destroy your trust in others when that happens. Don’t let them take that from you, because the beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Then if they let us down, and ruin our bond of trust, we see it as a failure on our end, not their's. What did I do? Why wasn't I good enough? The answer, it seems, is understanding that love is not a noun - it's a verb. It is active. Love is not just feelings of passion and romance. It is behaviour. It's choosing to trust, when nothing but their eyes, tell you otherwise.
