Secrets, secrets are no fun unless you share with everyone.

When you’re young, secrets are the ultimate currency. Adults keep secrets from you because you’re “too young,” friend trade secrets back and forth as a show of trust, and taunting other friends with the fact that you’re keeping a secret makes you feel powerful and popular. Secrets can be as harmless as “I totally copied [friend’s] homework because I didn’t do it last night,” or as seemingly major as “OMG I have such a crush on [popular boy/girl],” but in any language, way, shape, or form, secrets are valuable, precious commodities that make you feel trusted and powerful all in one. There was always that one person who responded to your “I know something you don’t know” taunts with the rhyme above, humming it at the sing-song intonation we all know so well, trying to get you to spill the words that let you one-up them for the time. In those early years, it’s a fun game, singing those two sentences back and forth, but as we grow up, we start to realize that having or keeping secrets can be a dangerous game. Even if you don’t know the content, just knowing that a secret is out there can spread rumors like wildfire, igniting a flame of destruction until someone is forced to spill the beans to clear their name, or someone else is devastated to find out they’d misplaced that knowledge, and its subsequent power and information, in the wrong hands.

So I guess it’s a little strange to be sharing on such a public forum that I have a secret.

Well, let’s clarify for a minute. Clearly I have a lot of secrets on this blog: my real name and those of the Nickname Posse, where I work/what I do, my favorite color (purple) (wait DAMMIT), and how I look, for a few things. This blog is like an intersection of secrecy and TMI, telling the world my personal experiences with booty calls and bad dates balanced by cryptic hints as to who flipped my mood upside down one day and made me smile the next. I don’t keep these things private because I like keeping secrets (which I don’t), or because I’m good at it (which I’m DEFINITELY not), but more that I like the semi-freedom of telling my tales without a filter, not held back from saying “and then I flashed some sideboob” because it might be the first result when you google my name. Plus, there will always be people in my stories that don’t get a say in the final draft, and their privacy will always be more important than my storytelling. In the grand scheme of things here, though, I haven’t kept any secrets. I’ve laid out everything about my past two relationships, been upfront when I’m depressed or angry, and shared quite frequently how often I’m pretending to be busy on weekends so I can drink wine alone with my cat. I’m an open book usually, the heart-on-her-sleeve kind of oversharer, who is happy to share the good stories and the bad, so long as there are people excited enough to listen.

That being my personality, for the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to figure out a good way to share said secret here. Should I hint at it with cryptic metaphors until someone asks me to cut the bullshit and just come out with it? Should I just say “fuck it” and tell the world what’s going on? Honestly though, I really don’t want to say anything, not yet at least. The secret is wonderful, it puts a smile on my face every single time I think about it, and I can’t wait to share it when the time is right. But having this secret has brought me back to that girl in elementary school, middle school, high school, and just sharing it here makes me feel like I’m a purveyor of precious knowledge once again. It’s not just on the blog, either – this is a secret that no one, outside the Nickname Posse, knows. Every day there’s this delicious aftertaste of holding the secret in my mouth the second before I blurt it out to everyone, dying to share what’s making me so happy yet still holding on to that little bit of power and intrigue. It distracts me at the worst possible times: I’ll be walking across the office and I’ll start smiling, wide, completely distracted by a memory of this perfect surprise; and to everyone else, I’m just smiling like an idiot at absolutely nothing.

So maybe there is a bit of truth to that sing-song rhyme, even now. I don’t know when I’ll be ready to share the secret itself: weeks, months, or maybe tomorrow. But it’s definitely been fun sharing that it exists

(I will at least clarify: I am not pregnant. I’m not moving. I’m still a redhead and aside from finally finishing the rib piece, I don’t have any new tattoos. Oh also no new cats, but only because mama B told me no. Yes, I’m 26 years old and I still listen to my mother when she yells. That’s not the secret either, but I’m glad it’s out there now.)