I have been thinking about secrets lately. What makes a secret interesting, hard to keep and scarce with details?

You have probably had many secrets that are not secrets. There are the family secrets like Aunt Jane keeps her Schnapps in the knitting basket, Uncle Tom likes to have young nieces sit on his lap, or grandma smokes in the outhouse. Usually, they are not really secret because we all know about them!

I have had some secrets that are doozies. The problem is once you have one, what do ya do with it? You have to tell someone. Don’t you? It’ll burn a hole in your psyche until you tell someone. Open up to someone who can start a rumor faster than a rocket. Secrets dissipate around them in no time.

I hold most secrets close unless it is knowingly false. The secret is a really weird phenomenon. You have something that is embarrassing or really bad. Why do people decide to tell someone about a secret? Is there something in our nature to not keep secrets? Why do we have to share them?

I will at times, when someone is about to reveal all, ask them to not to tell me about it but no, they have made up their mind to commit the sin of repeating “the secret.” I do try to tell them I can’t keep a secret. They come back with, “That’s ok it isn’t that big of a secret!”

Then there is the idea once you have a secret what can you do with it. Nothing!! You shouldn’t tell a soul. There is no fun in having a secret. There is no one you should share it with so you have no one to relish the juicy details. As kids we would make up stories and tell someone to find out how fast it got around. As adults, we don’t necessarily make up a story but we do embellish them when they are repeated. Mary’s getting a hair weave becomes a viral rumor about a red dye job and a wig made out of horse hair!

A real secret hasn’t got a chance of remaining a secret, so why care? There are some secrets that should remain ya know secret. I will close with this idea rambling around my head. Do you want to hear a secret about Aunt Helen or the one I just heard about you?