Day 42

For a while now, I've followed this awesome blog called Post Secret. The gist of it is, that people are encouraged to decorate a postcard with their 'secret', and then mail it in to Post Secret, who posts it on the blog for the world to see. The urge to share a secret is obviously a powerful one.

I warn my younger readers that there will be inappropriate content on the Post Secret site, but here are a few options that are 'clean', so you're good to check them out - look at: This and this and this and this and lastly this. There's a whole archive of them, but don't go there unless you are really okay with meeting the disturbingness of other people's minds, (I mean really sick, some of them) and you have a lot of hours to waste.

What is it about secrets that some people can keep them, and others just about burst at the seams with the effort of it? I'm going okay at the whole 'not talking about people behind their back' thing, but throw in a secret and oh gosh, I just about boil over. Why? Telling a secret is like an instant hit - short-lived, and probably regrettable, after all, you can't ever get the secret back - but it gives you a moment of importance, where your words alone become your superpower. The reward - witnessing a shocked face, hearing that "really?! Oh my gosh!" - it's like candy.

As a general rule, I don't give away other people's secrets, and I still have a few that I've kept long past their use-by date, but my own... I'm hopeless. This is an area where I seriously lack discipline. I also feel an intense amount of stress over 'well-known' secrets that I know I have to keep - like, if anyone was going to give away my dad's surprise 50th birthday party, it was gonna be me. The nervousness of knowing I can't talk about it, is enough to make me blurt it out unintentionally. Then I do a really bad job of trying to cover it up, which makes it worse.

So - my new List item: Keeping secrets. Let's see how I go.

In other news - yesterday the backyard played host to Plant vs. Dog. A convincing victory to the dog, meaning I no longer have the conundrum regarding indoor/outdoor plants to unravel. The other plant is lonely, but still thriving.