Secrets

We all have secrets. Some secrets are small, like you took the last cookie from the package and put the empty package back so no one would notice that you ate it. While other secrets are large, and often consume you. I have one of those types of secrets right now.  Sorry, I'm not going to spill this secret. To be honest it's not totally my secret, I share the burden. This secret though has begun to be all consuming of my thoughts recently and it is getting harder to bare.

In Harry Potter there is a term used for people designated to keep the location of a place secret, they're called "Secret Keepers".  The secret is kept in their soul, and they are the only ones capable of revealing the protected information to anyone else. When I read the Harry Potter series and came across this term it didn't mean much to me. To me this seamed normal, this is how someone keeps a secret anyways, so why need a special term for them. The fact is I understand this a bit more right now. A "Secret Keeper" doesn't keep just plain old secrets, they keep the secrets that have the greatest importance.  We're all our own Secret Keepers, but some of us become Secret Keepers for others as well.  I have only a hand full of people I trust to be my Secret Keepers, and of that handful there are only two I'm not related to.

Trust is something I struggle with. A very long time ago someone broke my trust, and I've had a difficult time recovering from that ever since. Granted, the person who broke my trust did a bang up job of doing it and made me a mess because of it, but I still I have done a poor job recovering from that breach of trust.  I've not only punished myself for having trusted that person, but I've noticed that I punish others as well for something they never did.  For many people you trust someone, until they give you a reason not to trust them. While I tend to not trust people at all until they give me a reason to trust them. This has the adverse effect of being closed off to people, or seeming that way to them. I hate the fact that I do this, but I don't know any other way because I've been this way for so long.

The people that know the secret that is weighing on me are being very supportive, but there is only so much that they themselves can bare. I fear that the individual I share this secret with is going through this right now. I haven't spoken to them for a while, and what I am able to follow of their life through things such as social media show that they are going through their own struggles. We allow secrets to consume our lives, and take over other parts. Personally my secret is not only consuming my thoughts, but taking over my sleep, causing me nightmares, and as I discovered the other night, threatening my relationships.

So how do we control something that we can't deal with publicly? Well I don't have an answer to that, I'm still trying to figure it out for myself. What I can do is trust the people in my life to not only keep this secret, but to help me deal with it. This may even mean sharing it with more people, and trusting them with this information. As I said, this isn't easy for me to do, but at the same time we have to do things that scare us from time to time. All I know is that once a secret begins to consume your thoughts, day in and day out, you have to do something about it. It's time for me to get a good nights sleep again, so I'm refusing to allow this secret to consume me anymore than it already has.

By the way, before friends and family begin to panic...I'M OKAY!!!!! My secret is something that happened a while ago, nothing to worry about, just been weighing on me. =)