Secrets

I absolutely positively can't get enough of the PostSecret web site. (If you've not been there... run, don't walk to the site as soon as you are done here!)  

It's a fascinating study in... so many things. Secrets, voyeurism, connections, basic human needs, truth, deception, fear, courage. I'm amazed and fascinated that one can get so much out of one collection of postcards.

In honor of PostSecret I will tell you one secret about myself. It is not earth-shattering or dark and will not give you any particular revelations. I'm not even sure why I thought of it today of all days.

When I was in my teens I lived alone with my mother. We lived in a tiny two room house, nothing fancy. My closet was not trimmed out with moulding on the inside and there was a narrow crack along the opening of the framing of the closet.

One night I wrote a small note. I don't remember what it said, but something along the lines of who I was and some of my thoughts. I put the date on it and slid it into the crack of the closet wall thinking that maybe one day someone would find it if they ever moved into this house in the future. I flattered myself to think perhaps I would create some archaeological or historical mystery. (Okay, remember, I was 13 or 14 -- don't hold it against me.)

Fast forward to ... well, let me not say how many years later. I moved out of that house, went to college, married, had children, lived life, moved back to the town where I was raised and began working in real estate. Suddenly I had the opportunity to show the house I lived in to some clients of mine. The little house where I lived as a teenager was sitting there waiting for someone to buy it!

Here we were, me and two strangers walking through the house of another two strangers who were waiting out in the driveway for us to finish and about halfway through the showing I remembered this silly note I've stuffed into the closet. First I wonder if it could possibly still be there. Second I wonder could it be possible that I can go fumble around in their dark closet looking for it?

Indeed in a surreptitious moment, I did run my hand down the doorframe of the closet hoping I'd feel a little note that might have been jiggled out over time. No sign of it. It never occurred to me all those years ago that I'd actually be back living in the town I grew up in. It never occurred to me that someday a neighbor of mine might actually find this wayward note and come wandering up on my doorstep to deliver it back to me after all these years. It's sort of horrifying and hilarious all at the same time.

Sometimes I drive by there on my way to somewhere else. I glance quickly over and see my younger self in there, hiding away a secret little note to strangers in the future. It's like forshadowing for my blogging future!

Do you have any stories about secrets?