Hold Back Secrets.

I feel like I have to hold back secrets. Like the pressure of them build in my chest, wishing to be known. Secrets reside inside me, wishing to be given, waiting to be explored, gifted by the closest of friends, and held within them too. Yet this is my new art, my new pain, this pain, of holding back secrets.

For two years, I felt (I feel) like I have to hold back secrets. Hold back secrets of death and drunk driving, of dad, of court room trials, of media frenzies. Of the mess that exploded, tore. Of the pain that ripped through the veins of my family, shredding each piece and leaving us like strangled survivors. Hurting, broken, often ignored.

For two years, most couldn't hear them. Still today, most ignore. Adults shutter to listen to a court trial, to hearing my dad give words at the stand. They turn aside at descriptions of funerals and flowers and phone calls. They jumble at facts of family choices, of beating words, of lawyer conversations.

Very few people are able to hold my secrets. But they do. They listen to my coursing, they carry my pain. They let me curse and swear and yell and wail. They know the facts of jail and prisons. They acknowledge stories of sidewalk standing and stiffed speaking. They listen to me, this girl without an identity, taken away as daughter and mother and family and best friend.

These are the secrets I hold, for two years. Rarely heard, hardly held.

There's new secrets now, which some are hardened to. Finding instead themselves jadded or walled or wishing against my joy. They choose not to mourn, nor to rejoice. They find themselves sheltered by their own pain, and not wishing to enter my story. I feel the tenseness of their words, their stiffened reactions, their pulling away. I have secrets now too, good secrets, wishing and wanting for the willing to come within.

To those who hold those secrets with me, thank you for being. For being present amidst joy and pain. For giving, allowing, releasing what's within me. For being the steadfast, the friend, the beloved Jesus to me. Thank you for catching and capturing goodness, for caring and trusting, for being Love into me. Thank you for coming into my world so I no longer have to hold back all secrets.

Come Into My World by Amy Grant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPRWat6OeSg