We all keep secrets. Sometimes things are so secret, we don't even know about them ourselves. Some secrets are embarassing; some are horrific; some are just so inconsequential, what's the point in telling anyone?
So many reasons for keeping secrets: shame, fear of judgment, fear of things worse than judgment, a need to keep something private and just for you, a promise you made to someone. It's difficult to know sometimes when to let it out and when to keep it in. Which is less harmful, which is the lesser of two evils. Maybe sharing will be cathartic, maybe it will stir up shit that was best left alone. It's hard to tell.
I've been thinking about this lately, I guess because I'm a fairly private person by nature who has lately become more open, more direct, more...effusive. It's not an easy transition. It feels strange, this relative transparency. And it makes private things, things that before would have been no-questions-about-it secrets, harder to hold onto. I want to scream things to the world, but then I wonder whether that's the right thing to do. Sometimes selective reticence is best, but selecting and filtering my disclosures can be befuddling. I don't know where to draw the line, but I think I'm getting closer, maybe. Some things are just trial and error (emphasis on the error), and they take more than 30 years to get even close to right.
Posted by thevieve at March 21, 2006 12:01 PM