Postcard 050 - The Unbearable Lightness of Being Trusted
It’s been a minute.
I’m sitting on a mountain of images from my recent trip to India for a friend’s wedding that I’ve told myself I can’t share here because one of my rules for this was no portraits. (Most of you follow me on Instagram, so you’ve seen them already, but I’m working on a longer photo essay with more words that will come… sometime.)
I’ve been meaning to write. To you.
It’s not that I haven’t been writing (I have - SO MUCH), but I haven’t made the time to exhale here, with all of the creative indulgence that it allows me.
But today my head was all over the place, so writing - to you - seemed to be the cure.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about trust.
My work is based on trust. Something like 90% of the companies (and people) I’ve worked with in the last four years have been former colleagues or referrals.
Trust.
Professionally, I’ve found a way to shift along the spectrum of being hired for activities to being hired for outcomes to being hired to care. When I started my career, it was “do x.” Then it became, “help us do x.” Now it’s just “help us.” (I’ll write more about this next month in my annual review.)
I love the ambiguity, and I recognize that it comes with a lot of trust. I take that trust seriously.
I also take my friends’ trust seriously. I have the incredible opportunity to officiate at a wedding this summer for two friends.
Trust.
In service of the wedding, I’m spending time with both the bride and the groom to learn more about them, their story, their perspective on the shared story, what they want out of the ceremony and so on. (Do I use “to be” as a suffix for them right now?)
The photo above comes from last night, where I spent a few hours and a few bottles of wine with the bride (to be).
The night was lovely for many reasons (hearing about your friend from the person who loves them most is one hell of a drug), and while I’m sure the Italian-that-drinks-like-a-Spanish wine had something to do with it, I couldn’t feel anything but gratitude as we wrapped up.
It was a difference similar to ser and conocer in Spanish - to know of versus to know intimately. I knew that it would feel special to be trusted like this, but I realized last night what that felt like.
Trust.
I recognize this all reads a bit self-indulgent with a dash of performative vulnerability, but I share this because it’s so alive for me right now.
In coming up on four years of being me-as-a-service, I’ve now worked for myself longer than I’ve worked for any employer. Somehow I’ve found (created?) a way to be myself professionally and sustain it. To partner with people on projects I think matter. To be trusted to care.
It weighs on me, in the best way possible.
(I am working on helping others navigate this shift — but more to come on that later.)