At our monthly Writing is Fun meeting, we choose a prompt, or topic, for the following month's writing. Limited to 2 pages so we can read them at the meeting, there is quite a diversity of interpretation on any given topic. Some write a fictional vignette, a real life recollection, and sometimes there's a poem.
The prompt for July 2023 was a Secrets. Here's what I wrote.
Secrets – Carol Kagan
Take a brief moment now and think of a secret that you’re keeping from others.
You have secrets. I have secrets and so does everyone
else. It’s something we humans do - hide stuff from other people. On average, according to
behavioral scientist Dr. Michael Slepian, we keep as many as thirteen secrets
at any given time. According to him, after research involving more than 50,000
people worldwide, the most common ones are lies we’ve told, ambitions, mental
health and financial struggles, and hidden relationships.
What is a secret? Merriam-Webster lists it as “something kept hidden or unexplained.” Slepian said, "I define
secrecy as the intention to hold back some piece of information from one or
more people. The information itself is the secret.” And it’s only a
secret until you tell someone.
The hardest secret to keep is the one
you think about most often. The weight of a secret comes from hiding it and
carrying it alone. This burden can cause depression,
anxiety, or shame. There can be feelings of
isolation or phoniness. Yet if you are looking for support, the fear of the
response may hold you back. You fear that once you tell, you have not opened a
door but have removed it from its hinges and thrown it up in the attic where
the secret used to hide. There would be no more hiding.
Disclosing a secret electronically is
cracking the door. The secret can be seen by whoever can look in. texts,
emails, social media posts like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and comments on
electronic blogs can be found and searched. Not good places to unburden
yourself.
Writing it in a diary or journal
leaves that door open and a secret can be found. Sometimes it is discovered
without you knowing. A casual remark or quiet question can reveal that it is no
longer a secret.
Is there a way to unburden yourself from carrying the
weight of a secret without telling someone? without revealing yourself in the
telling? without worrying about judgment or fear of the repercussions?
The answer is “yes.”
You can reveal your secret, anonymously, to PostSecret.
This is an ongoing community mail art project,
created by Frank Warren in 2005, in which people mail their secrets anonymously
on a homemade postcard. Selected secrets are then posted on the PostSecret website
or used for PostSecret's books or museum exhibits. Reminder: They are anonymous
as long as you don’t disclose information about yourself.
It is easy to tell your secret this way. Take a
postcard (more if you want to tell more secrets). Tell your secret anonymously.
Stamp and mail the postcard. Tips: Be brief, write legibly in big bold letters,
be creative. The postcard is your canvas. Mail to
Post Secret,
28241 Crown Valley Pkwy.#F224, Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
This month I will create and mail a postcard with a
secret. I will send my secret to Post Secret and next month I will tell you if
I feel better.
Post Secret https://postsecret.com/
I felt better and hardly think about it any more.
Here's a sample of postcards they receive.
~ ~ ~ ~
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