“Can you keep a secret?” I looked up before I answered, confused at the statement but curious as to what was about to be said needed an announcement in order to be revealed. “Sure, if you want me to.” I answered. I’ll store it with the rest of them, because somewhere in the back of my mind, I have hundreds of collected secrets. They’ve accumulated over the decades. For the most part, they’re just gathering dust.
I sometimes wonder why I was the chosen one. Perhaps I’m a good listener, I’m non judgmental or I refrain from colliding with the crowds on the need to gossip. I’m unsure if I even remember them all, but my conscience doesn’t allow me to repeat. Once in a while I’ll pick an old one and use it as an example for a life lesson. I am in possession of small inconsequential secrets and then the shocking confidential ones that made me freeze in my skin. Years ago I was moved with such information, but now nothing surprises me. I suppose with life experiences you learn that someone’s secret is about their life and they have a right to live it on their terms, secret or no secret.
I recall secrets I’m still holding on to for people who left my world or for those who couldn’t do the same for me, I still kept theirs. It’s the secrets that let us down and then it’s the secrets that save us too, kind of Ironic isn’t it? We all live with secrets, big and little incidents we’d rather not share; we’ll take them with us when we leave and no one will ever know. Some secrets, as in this occasion, we feel the need to disclose. Is a secret even a secret if it’s shared? If you don’t tell, does it become a lie? If you don’t know, will it hurt? If it makes you happy, is it still wrong?
For the most part, secrets are withheld so as to not hurt another, but we hurt when we hold on to them. My secrets, the ones I kept to myself, ate away at me slowly. A few secrets I hesitantly disclosed left me feeling guilty. I confided and then wished I hadn’t. Then there are secrets folks kept from me. The ones that when finally released, they deformed me, they left scars and I couldn’t get past the truth. Eventually, you learn to reconcile and move on. They become life lessons.
Every person I know, in some way or form, is a tad dissatisfied. Either secretly wishing they lived a different life, or are living two and the very few that are content now, have a speckled past of secrets. We all have a side that is unpublished. Even your soul mate doesn’t know everything. You can’t climb inside someone’s head or heart, you’ll never entirely know what they’re thinking or feeling. And so our thoughts also become secrets, our desires and fantasies become secrets of another kind.
There’s a an old proverb that says; ‘If you don’t want anyone to find out, don’t do it’. Yet we do it anyway. It gives us a thrill or sense of satisfaction to hide our secret life. In some form we all live a double life. It’s this second secret life that fulfills our inner thirst for a forbidden adventure. We venture out and do things we shouldn’t or are ashamed of. Then perhaps it’s our conscience that we can’t live with that allows us to confide in another we trust, because keeping it inside will eventually torture us, but telling will help release from that burden. Maybe it’s because we seek justification that in some strange way, it was a choice we had no choice but to choose.
And so as I listened to another secret, I too began packing it away. “Do you think I’m a bad person?” I was asked. “No.” I answered. “Secrets don’t make you a bad person.”
During the day the universe will watch your every move and when night falls we all put our secrets to rest. We tuck away all those malignant pieces that we need not reveal. We make ourselves believe we’re unimpeachable. In time you, yourself will realize if it was worth keeping or giving away your secret.