Knowing another's secrets can be burdensome...keeping secrets can be stressful...it can lead to misunderstandings...I know about this first-hand as I have been keeping someone's secrets for awhile...a deliberate choice at first, it is one I am not likely to make again...
The secrets were leaked to me...over a long time...one by one...only the last secret had a unique way of revealing itself...it started as a problem...it had none of the usual characteristics of a secret...it didn't become "secret material" until later...it was the problem that would never have been discussed with me had the final outcome been known in advance...it was, in the truest sense, the ultimate secret...the one that confessed itself...
Entrance to private quarters at San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo Mission...
This gets to the underlying trouble with secrets...they have a life of their own...they are as "alive" as anything else that gets created...and they want to come out...protecting them consumes exorbitant amounts of attention...they have to be managed, covered up, buried...keeping them hidden can become a full-time job that requires lying, denying, obsessing and trying to control everyone and everything involved...it means being constantly watchful...absolutely vigilant...
This week, I learned just how extreme that watchfulness can be...I learned that risking your integrity to protect someone else's secrets can have a very high cost...a cost that is due and payable because you have colluded in the deception by helping extend each secret's life...I learned that the simple act of writing a secret down on a piece of paper you later shred can be tremendously freeing...
I have come to fully understand that, like anger, secrets cause the most harm to the people keeping them...you think you own them, but they really own you...and while there may be some things I still need to work out, there's one thing I know for sure: if you can't speak about it to anyone else, please don't speak about it to me...if you feel like confessing it to me, the first thing I'm going to ask you is this: are you asking me to collude with you by continuing to protect it or are you taking the first step in freeing yourself before telling everyone else who needs to know?
If you aren't ready to become Chatty Cathy, then please, keep your secret to yourself...I've already burdened myself with enough of them to last this lifetime...