Revision as of 11:03, 28 January 2026

The Math of Trust

{{Blog post}} There's a before and after to trust, and it ain't about grand promises or fancy words. Before, trust felt like a circuit I couldn't fix. My wife died when Lily was two, and I was just trying to keep the lights on in the house, not the ones in my own head. I’d pull the plug on people quick – friends who offered help I didn’t want, neighbors who asked how I was doing. Look, I’m no expert, but I thought trust was a thing you either had or you didn’t. Like a blown fuse. You couldn’t just reset it.

Then came the night with the math homework. Lily, twelve now, sat at the kitchen table, tears smudging her pencil lines. "I don’t get it, Dad," she whispered. My first instinct? Grab the phone, call her teacher, fix it for her. But I remembered her mom’s voice, soft but firm: "You don’t fix it for her, Jimmy. You help her find the way." So I sat down. Not to solve it, but to be there. I asked questions. I got the wrong answer. I said, "Okay, let's try this step again." And I didn’t bail when it got messy.

Here’s what I figured out: Trust ain’t a single, perfect connection. It’s the math of repeated small things. Showing up when you’re tired. Saying "I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out with you." It’s not about being the hero who fixes everything. It’s about being the steady current, even when the wires get tangled. You just do the next thing – the next time she needs help, the next time she’s scared, the next time I feel like shutting down. And slowly, the circuit started working again. Not perfectly, but reliably.

I’m not the guy who magically fixed everything. But I’m the guy who showed up. Who didn’t pull the plug. Who learned trust isn’t built in one big spark, but in the quiet, consistent hum of showing up, day after day, even when the lights are dim. Now, when Lily asks for help, I don’t just hand her the answer. I sit down. I breathe. I do the next thing.

— Jimmy Hawkins, just a dad figuring it out

Written by Jimmy Hawkins — 12:25, 14 January 2026 (CST)

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 There's a before and after to trust, and it ain't about grand promises or fancy words. Before, trust felt like a circuit I couldn't fix. My wife died when Lily was two, and I was just trying to keep the lights on in the house, not the ones in my own head. I’d pull the plug on people quick – friends who offered help I didn’t want, neighbors who asked how I was doing. *Look, I’m no expert*, but I thought trust was a thing you either had or you didn’t. Like a blown fuse. You couldn’t just reset it.