Trust
5.23.5
I am a rather untrusting person at times.
This isn't to say I don't trust the people I meet in my everyday life...but more accurately, I don't trust the people I haven't met. People who, in all likelihood, don't even exist.
Some days I forget to turn my lights off when I leave the apartment. When I return home and see them on, I immediately go into some kind of alert mode. After I turn the key, I throw the front door open, letting it hit the wall, as I stand there, listening.
I then proceed to raid the apartment, going through each room, one by one, turning on lights, yanking closet doors open.
I have always been obsessive about things like this. In fact, I'm tempted to say that my level of paranoia has actually decreased over the years. As a child I would sometimes go to the front door 3 or 4 times in a row, simply to make sure it was indeed locked. It wasn't that I had forgotten that the door was locked...I knew it was. I just didn't trust my memory. Perhaps I hadn't looked close enough. Perhaps when I had locked it, I hadn't actually turned the deadbolt all the way.
I've also had moments in my life where I was confident that I was being spied on. I would look into the mirror and perform these little soliloquies designed to let "them" know that I was on to their little game. It wasn't even so much that I minded the idea of my every move being monitored. But if that was the case, I didn't want to look oblivious. I took joy in knowing that I had "outsmarted" these imaginary people. That somewhere, someone was realizing that they had been caught.
These little neuroses still crop up from time to time in my daily life.
A few moments ago, I went out to move my laundry from the washer to the dryer. When I got to the laundry room, I found the trash can inside placed directly in front of the door. I pushed the door open, which simultaneously pushed the trash can out of the way.
All I could think about was the fact that someone must have been in there. How else could the garbage can have been placed in such a fashion as to block the door. As I entered, I shoved the trash receptacle in front of a door leading to an empty closet. I walked in, eyes scanning everything, and peeked around the last washing machine. Nobody there.
As I transferred all my clothes over, I kept a watchful eye on the closet door. Every sound that came from the running machines, was nerve-wracking. I finished what I came there to do as quickly as possible, and then I got the hell out of there.
As I write this, I am dreading having to go back to that room. I know that when I go back, everything will be just like I left it. The trash can will remain in front of the closet door, and there will still be nobody in there.
