A busier than usual Saturday for me: a drive to Washington, DC to see a private screening of Cinderella (Evan and I loved it!) followed by a drive to downtown Baltimore to greet the new cast of the Listen To Your Mother show (May 9th!). And in between, a little shopping for a gala next week and home to bake what is smelling like an amazing cake for our St. Patrick’s Day dinner tomorrow. But none of that popped into my head for my brain dump. Instead, I thought back to my drive in to work earlier this week.
Here’s my 5 minute brain dump…
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Anyone who’s ever known me should know (and if they don’t, I’m telling them now), do NOT tell me a secret. I jut can’t keep a secret. As soon as a secret enters my ears, I start thinking of all the provisions I can put on telling someone else. Like this,
I’ll tell THIS person because she’s removed from the situation and doesn’t know anyone involved.
I’ll tell my husband because he’s my HUSBAND.
I’ll tell my sister but I’ll make her swear NOT to tell our mother (which she’ll do anyway).
People think it’s because I like to gossip. Maybe I do a bit but I think it’s because I like talking about people. I know it sounds like the same thing but really I’m more interested in cause and effect, action, and consequence, and human behavior in general. It’s interesting to talk about, don’t you think? Why did he do that? Why did she say that? What must they be thinking? It’s a lot of speculation for sure.
But I’ve only recently discovered a power greater than sharing secrets. It’s keeping it to yourself. It’s not a secret, really. It’s a good deed I did this week. It didn’t involve any actual people so nobody knows but me. Not my husband, not my son, not my sister. It’s not a big secret at all and there’s no reason to keep it secret. Honestly, I just kept forgetting to tell someone but then I kind of liked holding this little tiny bit of knowledge all to myself. It felt more special and it felt all mine.
Being a mother and a wife often makes you forget that there’s a YOU under all of that. A you that can read books and listen to music and watch a movie without anyone else’s knowledge or permission. And sometimes, just the tiniest of secrets can make you feel mightier than if you ever open your mouth.
12 comments
a movie by yourself … hmmm, did you sneak off and watch 50 Shades, that would be quite a dirty little secret 😉
No but coincidentally I was just thinking of how I’d like to go to the movies all by myself this weekend.
There is some power to keeping a secret. I am that way about gifts. I happened to see my mom in November when I already had here December birthday present. I had to give it to her then even though I would see her on her birthday. She is also my go person to tell the secret that I was supposed to not tell anyone. It kills me when my dad buys her something and I can’t tell. I will keep it to myself though. I’m looking forward to Cinderella. I was excited when I saw the preview because Cinderella plays on Downton Abbey. I knew she would make a darling Cinderella.
You’ll love it. It’s a good kids movie but also a great chick flick. I like that I’m getting better at keeping secrets as I’m getting older.
Secrets ARE hard to keep! In the last 6 months, I’ve been in a situation twice where I had to keep a secret for a VERY long time. It was so hard and I can’t tell you the relief I felt when the news was finally out in the open!
It’s soooo hard to keep secrets especially when you feel like the knowledge would make a difference to someone. I’m trying hard to be a bit more trustworthy and I’m starting by keeping a few of my own secrets.
I am such a bad secret keeper! Lily and James Potter would have been toast!
Seriously, I really do try to keep some secrets; everybody doesn’t have to know EVERYTHING because there is that delicious thrill of knowing something others do not.
Yes! Knowledge is power especially when you’re the one holding the knowledge!
Ugh don’t you just hate forgetting things. I have issues with memories.. At times I tell my husband I can’t recall the first 5 years of our marriage.. we had kids at 5 years. LOL Thanks Fadra!
My short term memory is horrible. I can’t remember the people I meet at conferences or even at the elementary school. I spend a lot of time faking it and it works pretty well most of the time 😉
Secrets are the worst! And the best! I love having that little secret when I am around other people. It makes me smile to myself that I know something nobody else knows. BUT I hate being around people that know things that I don’t know! In that way secrets are terrible. Good job keeping that secret! And PS I do like to gossip and I know it 🙂 But gossiping doesn’t have to be bad!
I think if we got together with a bunch of secrets, there wouldn’t be a quiet pause between us. In fact, I’m sure we did plenty of chatting around a campfire one night!