Craig Daily Press

“Act normal; don’t tell mom,” she says to her sister, wiping the makeup from her brow as they scurry down from her mother’s closet.

“I won’t tell her. I promise,” her sister says, taking off her mother’s pearls that are wrapped around her small neck and replacing them under the socks in the dresser.

“Do you pinky promise?” she asks, holding her pinky firmly out to confirm.

Because to her this promise cannot be trusted unless the two interlock their pinkies and kiss the opposite side of their fists. It just would not be a promise without the pinky promise.

After locking up their secret, the two reach the bottom of the stairs to find their mother waiting. She finds red lipstick smeared across her daughters’ cheeks.

And just like that, their promise is broken.

The sister who kept the promise is mad at the one didn’t and swears she will never trust her again, until tomorrow when they make another promise about the missing chocolate chip cookie or the timeout during recess. Until 10 years from then, when one sneaks out of the house and confides in her sister not to tell. Maybe even 15 years from then, when one promises never to tell anyone about her sister’s weekend getaway with a man, a man who is not her husband.

It becomes a continuous cycle — making promises and then breaking them. For some, a promise is just a way to get out of a conversation or previous commitment. Because saying “I promise” is like a period at the end of a sentence — it ends the discussion as it is.

And these people will make numerous promises, throwing them out like candy but never leaving the candy in the wrapper, never keeping that promise.

To them, a promise is just a scapegoat. And over time, their promises mean nothing. Because the sincerity has vanished, and so has their credibility. With each broken promise comes a broken heart. And sometimes another promise will mend the broken heart back into place. But eventually that broken heart will give up a piece of themselves to broken promises permanently or escape from commitments all together.

Famous novelist Paulo Coelho once said, “If you start by promising what you don’t even have yet, you’ll lose your desire to work toward getting it.”

This desire transpires within you, but it is also held within those special people in your life, the ones you give your promises to. Because once you lose your desire, these special people lose the desire to trust you.

These people, the ones who see through the broken promise, will only make a few promises in their lifetime because they have been on the receiving part of a broken promise.

Whether it is promising to call back tomorrow or promising themselves to one person for the rest of their lives.

To them a promise is a promise, and though they will give out only a few, those commitments will stay with them for a lifetime. The lack of promises they give might be seen as cowardice to others, but in actuality this is loyalty.

And loyalty is not measured by the quantity of pinky promises given in a lifetime, but by the quantity of people who still have the desire to give you those pinky promises.