Have you ever had a secret that you really had to keep? Not a bad secret, but one you couldn't tell anyone? I do, and that secret keeps me apart from others. And I can't tell anyone at all. I can't even write it down in my journal, because someone might see it.
Having this secret didn't disrupt my life until about 5 months ago. That's when I entered college. I'm away from home now for the first time, and my parents and my brother are worried that I'd spill the secret. I'm the youngest, you see, so they're worried that I'm not as smart as the school thinks I am. Or that I'm book smart but not very practical. Which is, in a way, somewhat true.
The problem is that I'm afraid that I might spill the secret accidentally. I want to tell someone so badly that I've resorted to spilling the secret to my teddy bears, stuffed animals, and plastic figurines whenever my roommate's not in the room.
Because of this, I'm not so eager to hang out with my new friends. They're great people, I know, but I'm just afraid that they'll not like me once they know. I don't know why. Maybe it's just paranoia.
Last night, two of my closer friends got together and sent me an e-mail on the campus computer network. They told me that they were hurt and wanted to know if I still wanted to be their friend?
I stared back for ten minutes or so - not sure of what to say. Finally, I typed back, telling them that I did want to be their friend. I chose words carefully, and let them know that it wasn't because of them that I was avoiding them.
In the middle of typing the phone rang. I picked it up. "Hello?" I asked, not expecting it to be for me.
"Hi, it's me," my mother's voice replied. She doesn't call me "sweetie" or "honey" like some mothers. Which is fine with me.
"Hi Mom," I replied with a sense of dread. I knew what was coming.
"How are you?"
"I'm okay, Mom, how are you?" I asked.
"Fine, fine," she replied, brushing the question aside. Unless there was an illness or a serious problem, there was never anything wrong with my mother.
"That's good," I replied. I'd lived with her for 17 years of my life, my whole life, so I knew how to talk with my mother by now.
My mother's voice became conspiratorial. I could almost picture her hunched over the phone in a dingy phone booth, hoping that no one heard her conversation as she continued. "You haven't told anyone, have you?" she asked in a low voice.
"No, Mom," I replied with a sigh. I could almost see her nodding, a tight smile appearing on her tense face indicating she was pleased. Or as close to pleased as my mother could get.
"It's not that I don't trust you, you know," she began. "I just want to make sure. I've got a lot on the line here, you know." I sighed.
"I know, Mom," I told her. She gave me the same basic speech every week. Telling her that I knew it already was useless. She'd nod and then tell me the same thing over and over again, repeating it every week.
My mother continued talking and I zoned out, inserting "yes, mom," and "mmm-hmm," at all the right moments. She babbled on for a few minutes longer while I thought about the e-mail in front of me.
"Are you listening to me?" my mother interrupted suddenly.
"Yeah, Mom," I replied, hiding the sigh in my voice. The good thing about communicating with my mother either online or on the phone is that I can easily hide from her that I'm bored out of my mind. If I show the slightest indication of not listening to her while she's there, she'll notice and then she'll never stop talking.
"Good. How's school?"
"Fine, Mom," I replied.
"Good," she replied, and I pictured her nodding again. She wasn't worried about my grades.
"Mom, I've gotta go," I told her.
"Of course," she replied. "You've got studying to do. I'll talk to you later."
"Bye Mom," I told her, hanging up.
I turned back to my computer screen and stared at the e-mail that was bothering me. After a few moments I began to type again. I told my friends my secret. I couldn't hold out any longer. My mom will probably hate me for it but I don't care. I'm on my own now, I can tell whomever I want. The only question now is whether or not my friends will still accept me after they know the truth about me. Will they stand by me or not? I don't know. But there's only one way to find out.
