“I need to tell you something, but you can’t tell anyone…”
If I had a dollar for every time I heard these words! People like telling me their secrets, and I willingly partake.
Secrets can be delicious, like velvety chocolate melting in your mouth. When someone trusts me enough to tell me something, I take it very seriously. Knowing someone trusts you is a huge compliment, and a huge responsibility. It isn’t lost on me that blurting out a single secret could bring down the entire house of cards built on trust, so I take it seriously. I lean in, an audience of one, and prepare myself for whatever will follow. I harden my stomach and tighten my shoulders, almost as though I’m preparing for someone to whip a basketball right through my middle, and I have to stand strong enough to catch it, absorb it, and avoid dropping it. The moment before a secret is revealed is a quiet, breathless pause. It’s scary not knowing what’s on the other side.
Secrets can be a burden, when it’s about illness or a type of loss that is almost too raw to put into words. I find it best to stay mostly silent when someone is divulging a secret — and plant your feet squarely on the ground. When telling a secret that is painful, the secret-teller is taking a heavy weight and placing it in the secret-keeper’s arms for safekeeping.
Secrets can also be gossip, lying, manipulation, or withholding, but these aren’t the secrets I like. I like the happy ones: the ones that involve pregnancies, new jobs, proposals, true love. I love a secret that is too delicate and special to broadcast to a crowd, so it is doled out carefully to one set of ears at a time.
It’s no wonder secrets are the topics of movies, plays, TV shows, and podcasts. They are dramatic, and they are often a pivotal point that delineates the beforeand the after. Sad secrets are even more delicate, because they have the power to change everything for the worse. Holding those kinds of secrets can sort of chip away the insides of you; they plant a shaky feeling that settles in the pit of your stomach. A lot of times it feels like holding your breath until the secret-teller opens it up, finally offering it up to the world. Then — relief!
Today, I’m holding someone’s happy secret. It puts a bounce in my step and makes me want to burst. It almost scares me to think that I wear it on my face and people will know just by looking at me! But I’m well aware that the secret doesn’t belong to me … I’m only carrying it for a bit.
I don’t often have my own secrets, but when I do, it really hits me when I’m on the other side of it, deciding who I can trust to listen without judgement, to show compassion without doling out unwanted advice. It makes me be careful about who I choose, since I know so well the weight and the burden it can cause, not to speak of the real estate it occupies in the secret-keeper’s psyche. It’s a big ask, and not to be taken lightly.
Open-ended vague questions like, “Are you free on Friday?” always feels like a trap to me. If I answer “I’m free,” then I’ve abandoned any excuse for why I can’t do whatever the next thing is. And it could be anything! “Are you free on Friday?” Answer “yes” and you’ll end up hearing, “Good! You can help me move!” “Good! You can watch my three rowdy kids!” Kiss your Friday goodbye.
Or … Friday could turn into a fun night out with friends, tickets to an event, and a perfect first date. When someone asks if you’re free, you have fractions of a second to make a very big decision.
It’s the same way with “Can I tell you a secret?” Most of the time I say “yes,” and I find out immediately if I made the right decision or not. But there’s no going back — secrets only move forward, and there is no way to take it back or give it back. Which is why the tellers must be gentle and the keepers must be stalwart. Secrets have the ability to destroy with a heavy hand, but the really good secrets are more of an even exchange than they might first appear — both sides of the secret, the giver and receiver, dance together precariously on a tightrope, in a courageous act of love and trust.
