My PostSecret....

i discovered a new online phenomenon this weekend through a friend. PostSecret. It's a site/service that allows people to post they're deepest secrets anonymously and be read by thousands. Some form of a release i suppose and with no consequence. It's so surprising to hear some of the secrets. Some are confessions, some are tiny insights into corky habits. But i'd bet that all of them are completely unexpected. You don't see that bottom layer of people in most everyday situations. I think, as a whole, that we're all pretty good at suppressing it.

My problem now, and just as i though it was moving past it, is that i feel i was your PostSecret. No matter how big the stage was that we stood on, and no matter how many hands we shook and smiles we pushed out, we always knew that at the end of the day we go to the other and be completely and utterly honest. Secrets we hadn't shared with anyone else. It created this trust and, i'll be honest, i fell in love with the person that no one else knew even though so many had tried to get in close enough t see it.

I miss talking about everything. I miss talking period, but this small talk kills me. Only because i was sure that my place wasn't on this side of things. I never thought i'd be the one receiving the perfect smile, and not getting a chance to know what's really going on behind the makeup. I'm not sure i want what everyone else gets. I wanted the PostSecret side as well. You in all of your funny surprises and darkest worries. 

I never kept a secret from you... until the last time I saw you when I was asked how all was and I said "fine". Don't get me wrong life is great, gorgeous even... but not quite fine. Something in me hasn't been able to rest since august.

Value

I'm becoming concerned with the value that I assign to certain things. What defines "worth" to me in situations and life in general. As i read through Old Testament accounts today my mind was burning with the need to find answers to present day questions. Questions that people seem to love to argue about. Questions that many just keep to themselves, but nonetheless, questions that i find important and pressing for an answer. 

While i was reading it seemed to creep up on me, this idea... it's all about the value we assign things. Abortion isn't about right or wrong, or choice or not, it's about the value we assign life. These are tough decisions we make. Questions like "Cake or death?" are making more and more sense. Capital punishment or not? If no, then what kind of value do we assign life? If yes, then what kind of power do we claim to have over it? Tough decisions indeed.

To take a step back to the less controversial, what about our views on life for the living? Aside from the right to live or kill, or the overall value of life, what defines value for the specific one? Money? Status? Drive? Power? ....i don't know.

I felt small again last night. Defeated and reminded of mistakes and regrets. I felt like a product of less value. Maybe it was a matter of numbers. Maybe it was an old track record of failures. Maybe it was the fact that both were so widely known in a place that i use to call home and now feel i cant return to. ...I don't know

But i can hear that certainty, although barely, in the back of my mind. Reminding me of what it is that defines me, and of the fact that it's very possible that many may never see that but myself and my God. The core of my integrity, and the root of my character may never be broadcast like my sins have been... but regardless of the value that's been assigned to our past by those bystanders we must take the initiative to value the good and right and work to create more.

I'm working on it.