That is you.
I know it.
You thought it was a secret,
clung to it,
revelled in the glory of it.
Joy to the world.
Right?
Trust it’s not the only thing.
Naturally.
Oh, baby blues sparkle.
You see the darkness,
and turn your back.
No slackers here.
No secrets sneaking from those cracks.
Oh, I know.
That’s you.
Each day she enters the library
trailing behind her friends to sign out a book-
one they suggest or something near that’s fat
and impressive.
“I could never read a book that thick!”
“I heard that author is great!”
She settles into her seat, and
during silent reading
she opens to the middle and flips pages
occasionally looking at the cryptic shapes
arranged on the page to find words she knows,
but mostly her eyes are elsewhere as she turns
the page, stealthily,
wondering what others see when they read
wondering if they are pretending,
wondering if anyone notices.
At the end of each class,
its mysteries too deep to decipher
she drops the book into the library bin.
“Are you done already?”
“Yes. It was really good.”
In the entire history of our marriage, it was the only secret I kept from her, and eventually it became impossible to fix. With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.
Water for Elephants. Sara Gruen. p. 415
This is a valid point, don’t you think? Whether or not the thing you conceal is important in later years, it can become a “Why didn’t you tell me?” sort of thing. Mind you, I also know that shrug that says, “Well that’s no big deal!” and just accepts the fact that some people are nervous about sharing news that they think will be taken badly. Some people get all worried about things like that, and others shake it off. In the past. Water under the bridge. Who cares now about such things?
What do you think? When is keeping the secret bigger than the secret itself?
Shawn L. Bird 