Ooooooooooo.... *secrets!*

What is it with people who are so "secretive?"

Or at least try to be.

We somehow always find out what's going on, anyway.

Like the person in the office that everyone *knows* is gay but who pretends to be straight. How painful is that?

Or the couple having the affair who insist they are "just friends." Yeeeeeeeah, right.

Or the dog who swears he wasn't in the garbage while he sits with last night's dinner dangling from his mouth.

It's like lying by omission rather than commission - and the ramifications can be unnecessarily painful for themselves and the people around them.

For most, it's a way to maintain some sort of control of other people and to prevent them from getting close - profoundly close. These folks generally sabotage relationships that start to be too "real." Too intimate - not necessarily sexual, but genuinely positive and close.

I mean, these people claim to be "private" but it feels more to me like they are afraid of sharing who they are. Emotionally parsimonious.

Like a story I wrote long ago called The Feelings Miser. It was about a massively disfigured old woman who tried desperately to conceal her feelings, making her uglier with every feeling she concealed from others - and herself.

She also became more and more desperate to control all those feelings. She caught them before they escaped, shoved them in corners, compartmentalized them, categorized her emotions by color and then locked them away.

Until one day a little girl innocently discovered a feeling the gnarly-fingered woman tried to hide from her - but not soon enough!

The little girl told the old woman she must feel very bitter.

The old woman imploded!

Realizing that even though barely a dollop of her "secret" world of feelings had been exposed, she started to feel vulnerable, scared, fearful, and was suddenly incapable of withholding any of them back! All the colors she had hidden away for all that time escaped from underneath her large black dress - from the area of her heart.

A massive streak of every color with every hue imaginable flew around the room, filling it with ribbons of emotions she had been holding so closely, terrified of showing her real self to anyone.

Interestingly, as her tears fell, as she laughed and cursed and loved and showed every emotion she had attempted to conceal - the gnarled old woman grew younger ... and beautiful! More, she was so excited and happy to not just own and experience her feelings but to share them!

She was amazed at the sheer beauty of every shade she experienced that permeated every inch of the chamber.

The little girl squealed with delight, clapping her hands gleefully.

From that day on, the little girl and woman shared their feelings and secrets, filling their lives with meaning and significance, after which they blew emotion bubbles, which always made them smile, no matter how serious, sad or bleak the feelings they shared that day.
_________

I know people who clutch their emotions and stories so tightly even standing next to them they feel as if they are a tick away from bursting.

But they are too afraid to talk about the feelings that ensnare their minds and lives, preventing them from connecting with others in a healthy, fulfilling way.

I hope one day they appreciate how enjoyable life can be when they release all that pent up emotion, letting everyone around them know who they are - and just what fantastic people they can be - or already are.