A Fascination with Secrets
Everybody has them. But I’m wondering: Have you told your partner all your secrets? Do you still have secrets to surprise them with? Are there some you’ll carry to your grave?
Do you check out PostSecret every Sunday? If you don’t know what it is (really?!), a guy named Frank started handing out postcards for people to mail in secrets. It snowballed, and there’ve been five or so books, museum exhibitions, lots of money raised for suicide prevention, and thousands and thousands of secrets.
Some postcards could be made into a novel. In fact, I often troll PostSecret Archive for story ideas.
Some postcards have secrets that touch you in some way. Sometimes in a funny way, and sometimes you feel comforted to read someone else’s secret.
Sometimes people send in secrets that they made up, but that’s okay—because they are someone’s secret. And that’s the beauty of the PostSecret project: the postcards illustrate our common humanity, and they remind us that even when we feel alone, we are not alone.
I was thinking the other day about how I’ve lived with secrets for most of my life. My mother has tons of them, and I couldn’t pry those stories out of her for anything.
I’m the opposite. I totally spill my secrets when they’re mine alone, except when the secret involves someone else, and then not telling drives me mad. I suppose my pseudonym is a secret, but not really. It doesn’t feel like one, and not just because some people know: it’s more a no-go area, publicly, mostly because there have been kids in my life and there will continue to be… and heck, I’m working on a YA book, like everyone else. *grins*
How many secrets do you have? Do you hold secrets you’ll never tell anyone? Or do you mostly tell everyone everything? How do you feel about your partner having secrets?
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats. She is currently enjoying the lizards and desert heat in Arizona.
I think it is a bad idea to tell everyone everything. In fact, I think there are things that are perhaps better off not talked about all, certainly not in detail. Mary and I both have things which we don’t discuss. Sometimes it is best to leave the past remain in the past.
I think you’re probably right. There’s a line somewhere, I think. Not that I know precisely where it is.
I never heard of PostSecret but I’m going to check it out. I love the first postcard. That’s a great plot.
I don’t know if they’re “secrets,” but I certainly don’t spill everything about my life on the internet. I just don’t want to.
Oh yeah, Edie. About 1 in 10 would make a great novel.
My real secrets are going with me to the grave.
LOL! Good place for them.
I don’t really have secrets. I have things I refrain from mentioning.
*grins*
*like*
For about two years I’ve had a MAJOR secret (to me) (affects-my-whole-life kind of major) that I’ve been wanting to tell you. Tell YOU because it involves me and someone else you know. I’d like your opinion, but I’d have to trust you not to do anything I wouldn’t want you to do with the information. Also, I have a need to express my feelings to someone fairly removed from the situation, since I probably won’t express them to the main people involved. Plus I’d be interested in an objective person’s thoughts to help me clarify whether my feelings are justified or irrational.
Wow, that sounds big, Maria! You can email me, if you like. Or message me on Facebook. I hope it’s not made you too unhappy.
(I have NO idea what it is.)
Do you have an e-mail address I can use? Or can you write to my address from yours – if you get mine with this note? I don’t want to publish mine. Thanks!
I don’t know that I have any secrets, per se. I would feel comfortable sharing anything with Charles & if there’s anything I’ve missed, it’s only because I don’t enjoy delving into my highly painful past. If he has secrets of his own I respect his need for privacy.
That makes sense, Lana.
I’m always surprised when my best friend doesn’t know something about me, LOL. I just sort of assume I’ve told her everything.
I suppose everyone has secrets. I recently spilled a secret of sorts (more an uncomfortable truth about myself) to my man and he was cool with it. And I felt like this huge weight just… went away. It was pretty awesome.
That top picture bugs me. I feel sorry for whoever wrote that, because they obviously cannot see the value of what is right in front of them–probably the other person(s) left them for that exact reason.
Oh wow, Elizabeth! That would feel awesome to me, too. I like everything on the table, honestly, although it can be frightening to put it there.
I agree… although I think it would make a great love story, you know? I sorta see it as a happy ending, but they haven’t been together long enough to know it yet.
Thanks for reminding me about this site! You’d shown it to me a while ago, but I’d forgotten about it.
(BTW, I’m 47, and I, too, will NEVER, EVER hang my foot over the edge of my bed because of the same fear, run up the cellar steps, too, and sleep with the covers around my neck for fear of vampires. So, I should just make an appointment with a psychiatrist and tell her to start building her summer home, right?)
I didn’t think that how to send in your secrets was very well addressed on the site. Just my opinion.
I 100% agree! I’m still a bit frightened of the monsters who live under my bed. On THIS bed, however, it’s kinda awesome: there is no “under the bed,” except outside. So I don’t have to worry about that.
I have lots of secrets. Most come from when I was in my 20′s. Some I might tell on my death bed, some I’ll never release.
Thank you so much for this site!
I always wish I had a wild 20s. I feel like my oats still aren’t sown, LOL.
What an awesome website! I’m not a real secret keeper. Since nothing embarrasses me, I tell everyone everything. It drives my mom insane. She’s really private. I hate not being able to tell stories about my parents. They are the funniest people I know. Also, my kids insist on a certain amount of privacy – the little bastards.
Hah! I’m a bit like you, Robin. I blurt everything out. Not someone else’s secrets… but my own? I can’t keep my own secrets!
I think everyone has secrets. It’s funny, but I have so much responsibility (four children I am completely financially responsible for, two aging parents who have moved in with me . . .) that I don’t tell ANYONE anything, in a sense. I’m so used to handling things and though I seem so outgoing in real life, I actually keep much of my burdensome stuff inside, which likely isn’t healthy, but most of the things that weigh on me no one could possibly do anything about . . . like I can’t suddenly make my blind dad see. I also have secrets far older and much deeper. I tell my Significant Other about 99% of past stuff, and my best friend a lot too.
BUT . . . here’s the thing. I think I live fairly transparently. If someone ASKED me something, I have no problem revealing it, and so my secrets don’t feel heavy to me, I don’t think they change how I face the world or what I do. I live authentically, if that makes sense. They are sins of omission, in a sense. I think they are carried with me more because I’ve made peace with them and revealing them won’t change my authenticity. If that makes any sense.
Awww, Erica, you’ve got enough burdens! I’m the same in that respect: if someone asks me something, they’ll get an honest answer, or at the very least, an honest answer as to why I won’t tell them.
If I feel they’re operating under a misassumption, I’ll feel the need to tell, but that’s harder. Sometimes people don’t want to hear the story; they just want to believe what they believe.