secrets in the dark

I was hanging out with a few friends the other night when one of them said “Now I know your tongue gets a little loose when you’ve been drinking, but I don’t want you to repeat this.”

I think my first reaction was to feel a little hurt, followed by the realization that yes I liked to “share” but that this was only done in moderation and then only when I was certain I was safe, followed only later but the self introspective thought of “what is ok to share and what isn’t?”

I’m going to tell you another story.

D. reminded me, however casually as we were driving down the road, that she knew that I was prone to semi-suicidal thoughts and that this was no time for such self indulgent thinking.

As you absorb that one I have to tell you I cannot for the life of me (no pun intended) remember what we were talking about or why she would have said this. But I was so stricken by the fact that my eleven-year-old daughter knew this very intimate and powerful detail about my psyche that I nearly drove into the curb.

You know, I don’t think I keep secrets very well.

I used to like to “play” at revealing secrets; that is I would pretend to be ignorant of the fact that I was revealing something about Christmas or a Birthday and then take a secret glee in the reaction. “Oh Patrick! Can’t you keep a secret?” For some reason Unknown to me, I used to think this was terribly humorous. And while I do not think it is funny anymore, it lead me to think that people thought I couldn’t keep a secret because I had conditioned them to believe it so.

But the more I think about this. I begin to wonder.

Let me ask myself this question and see what happens: Do I keep secrets.

Yes.

How do I know? Ask another question.

Are there things I would never tell anyone? You bet’cha.

But then if this is the case, why do I raise the question at all? Is the question rather can I be trusted?

I don’t think it is because I know that I can. Loyalty is very important to me and I am very loyal and would take your secret to the proverbial grave if need be.

I don’t, however, feel particularly secretive about things in my own life. And maybe that is where the incongruity begins to seep in. Because I will freely tell you about MYSELF things that I would never repeat if they were about you.

I am not an exhibitionist. I don’t know what I gain from this, but I don’t mind being vulnerable if I think it will strengthen the relationship or if I think someone can be aided by my own experience strength and hope, especially when it comes to being human and making human mistakes. I am an expert here. That and, if you know me at all you will know that I love to laugh, and laughing at my own mistakes is joyous!

That makes me think too that I am a bit lousy at keeping secrets that are themselves joyous hence the Christmas, birthday, expectant baby kind of secret breaking.

I asked J. if she thought I was a good secret keeper and she said politely “I think it is an area that you struggle with” and then went on to say that when it were spelled out in no uncertain terms “Do not share this” that she knew me to be the kind of person that wouldn’t say a word.

The thing for me, that I struggle with, as my wife so adroitly puts it is that I like to process my experiences and have a hard time setting boundaries with others, so when other people have expectations about their own boundaries that are different than mine, I find difficulty.

(I find myself holding my head between my hands in shame thinking “I am a terrible secret keeper” as if to say “I am a terrible friend” or “I am a leper”)

I keep thinking about this when the solution is right there. I need to clearly define what needs to be “secretive” with others when those situations occur. Because the real shame is not that I might be a poor secret keeper. The real shame is that I might break a friend’s trust. And that is something I do not ever want to do.

Still the notion that I am a flibbertigibbet nags on my conscience and is unsettling to me, and I suspect it will for sometime. I think the question I need to resolve for myself is: Is this a character defect? And right now I don’t think I have the answer to that question. SO I resolve to wait and see, to be a better friend and… as a dear friend recently told me “never miss an opportunity to shut the hell up” even though he was talking about his own excessive know-it-all-ism and not secrets, the similarities are striking.