Call It What You Want...

After a conversation with a friend recently and the revelation of deep, dark secrets, I thought I should write a blog about my own deep, dark secrets.

Then I realized the shocking truth:

I don't really have any.

I mean, there's the assorted collection of "Yes, I actually dated that person," and "Yes, I actually liked that song," and the horrifying "Yes, I owned that album -- on cassette of course -- and even sometimes still listen to it when I come across it" (Nena, 99 Luftballons). But real deep, dark secrets? My mouth is way too big for that.

Mom found out before the statute of limitations had passed that the roadtrip to Hell with my brother actually involved more than the roads being "a little slick" on the way home. I confessed to one very dear friend that sometimes I did things (back in college) just to annoy her. (I apologized for that, too. She's a terrific person and I regret the way I treated her...) I never stole anything -- not even one little candy -- and I never started a fight (though I did finish a couple, including one in fifth grade when D.J. jumped on me and started trying to hit me, in front of the teacher, no less, and I polished him off rather quickly, to the teacher's amusement, and one in a college theatre class, which ended similarly). I never hid a grade card and never cheated on a test, and never told a really really big lie. Of course, there was the lie about the thermometer (Yes, I confess, I broke it), but Mom saw through my innocent look and my denial like glass. (Maybe it was because I was four years old and hadn't taken the time to learn from the master.)

Perhaps it's a boring life not to have deep, dark secrets. Nothing to pull out at parties to make people gasp. Nothing to write about later in my tell-all memoirs. But I sort of look at it from the other side (the goody-goody side): I don't have to remember who I told what. I'm too simple to keep it all straight.