I've Got a Secret...

We all have them, right? Things we have harbored inside us for weeks, months, and even years. Things we've thought about telling someone, but stop ourselves at the last second out of fear - fear of embarrassment, fear of rejection, fear of making it true once we actually verbalize it.

I have secrets that I know I will never share with another soul.

I found this web site a few days ago (I'm sure many others have already seen it) - it's called PostSecret, and ever since seeing it, I've become obsessed. According to the web site, it's "an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard". How great is that? How absolutely liberating to anonymously tell the world your deepest, darkest secrets?

I can recall times in my life when I've shared secrets with people only to have them shared with a bunch of other people. The first time comes to mind when I was 6 years old (in fact it was at my 6th birthday party) and I told my sister my biggest secret. I was so excited to share it with someone and what did she do? As I was just about to blow out the candles on my cake, someone told me to make a good wish. That's when my sister decided to share my secret with my whole family. She blurted out, "I know what she's wishing for! She wishes that she could marry Donny Osmond!" Aaaargh!!! I'd been outed by my own sister! Ironically, someone snapped a picture of me right after she said this - I was sitting in front of my cake absolutely pouting. I know I have that picture around here somewhere...

My point in telling that story is that this project gives us an opportunity to release from our souls those secrets we know we can never share with another person. We can get rid of that burden on our own terms and never have to worry that someone will think differently of us, or reject us, or think we're weird.

I've already started my secrets list - some kind of humorous, some quite shameful.