Secrets
Since Mackenzie Phillips
started making the rounds of talk shows,
speaking her truth about her life as she sees it,
I've been thinking about secrets.
The kind of secrets that rule your life,that make you see yourself as smaller than you are,
that fill you with a sense of shame.
The kind of secrets
that other people urge you to keep,
not for your own good
but for theirs.
What burdens have you carried for someone else
for far too long?
Comments
I keep secrets - my secrets - simply because they are not anyone else's business. And they don't rule my life. And if someone does tell me a secret - it remains a secret with me.
I see no value or benefit from "sharing" specific personal info in a pell mell mannor ... that plays into another set of values: pop psychology, gossip, insincerity, false promise and such.
Some secrets are harmless and can even be savored, as Bill points out. The kinds of secrets that belong only to you are more likely to be the harmless, delightful kind of secret (provided you aren't a serial murderer or rapist, of course). By contrast, the kind of secrets that you are made complicit in against your will or better judgment or because of your innocence, now lost, are not harmless and take a toll on anyone forced to keep them.
I don't know whether Mackenzie Phillips sharing was productive or not. It seems to me that the therapeutic function was inherent in the writing. The publishing may have been more salacious than therapeutic, but then salacious sells books, doesn't it?
Some secrets are left as secrets because if told they would hurt the person you love most. And yet, those same secrets can cause a part of yourself to wither.
Do you know what I did? I told it to Jeffrey. I did.