Secrets

My father helped us clear and mulch space for a small garden. He planted flowers and I added basil and rosemary. Days later, as I bent to water the new bed, I noticed a weed. I pulled it.

I noticed another weed. Then another.

I didn't see the next weed until I saw the first.

So secrets seem to me as I undertake this self-awareness journey, these awkward, stumbling steps towards enlightenment.

His mind of man, a secret makes
I meet him with a start
He carries a circumference
In which I have no part
--Emily Dickinson

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
--Robert Frost

But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.
--John Milton

At support group meetings, one hears, "You're only as sick as your secrets."

If that is true, then if I tell my secrets, I am more well, less sick.

The person to whom I must first tell my secrets is myself.

When I told myself the first secret I worked so, so hard not to be true--that I was unable to conceive a child--grief felled me and I rolled on our dining room floor as if I were on fire.

I can respect people who choose to keep their secrets, even from themselves.

I respect the wise man who advised the young man seeking the path of enlightenemnt, "Don't start."

Once I saw the first secret, I saw another. Then another.