I opened up a facebook message from Lisa to find this:
Please don’t kill me. If you were on 48HM, the blog would be your big secret! You officially have a secret life!
I know this probably seems like annoying friend speak, so let me explain. First, Lisa is my best friend and–more importantly–the only person in my real life who knows about this blog. Second, I love the show 48 Hours Mystery. It only takes a few episodes before you realize they all go the same way. There’s a person or a couple or a family, and everyone thinks they’re perfect. But then someone goes missing or is murdered. As they solve the mystery, all kinds of secrets come out. Of course the perfect couple were secretly into swinging, the family wasn’t happy at all, and that nice girl was manipulating guys and then steeling their money. The people interviewed always say things like, “I had no idea. They seemed so happy.” I’m telling you, these people always have secret lives!
Lisa and I joke about how we’re not interesting enough to have secret lives, but if we were ever on 48 Hours Mystery, we’d say about each other, “I’d known her for 10 years, and I had no idea. She seemed so nice.”
But, my obsession with secret lives goes beyond that. A particularly painful part of growing up for me was realizing that you can’t put people on pedestals. It’s not fair, and they will always disappoint you. This didn’t happen for me until college. I found out that a couple people I knew were hiding things from me, that damn near every one of my academic and activist idols had some serious skeletons in their closets, and that people thought I was far more perfect and put together than I could ever possibly be.
It’s double edged, really. Part of me feels sorry for these people with secret lives–sorry that they can’t live honestly. And, part of me knows that we all keep pieces of ourselves hidden.
This idea of secret lives is really important to my novel. It was my way of working it out for myself. The main character takes the same journey I did (of course, way more dramatically) of accepting that people are always far more complicated and imperfect than they seem. And, to some extent, you have to let them be that way. At least, you shouldn’t make them always choose between disappointing you and being honest with you.
Now I’ve got a secret life of my own, and I don’t know quite what to do with it. Sometimes it does feel dishonest to keep this entire blog, and so many of the ideas in it, a secret from my friends and family and coworkers and classmates. Other times, I think that living honestly is far messier than that. Keeping this secret allows me to be honest in other ways. So, I’ll keep my secret for now. I just hope that if I’m ever featured on 48 Hours Mystery, you all will be available for exclusive interviews.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Well it’s not like you’re trying to be dishonest? I mean, you are honest on your blog and from what I gather you don’t try to convince people you are something other than who are. The blog is just one way things get channeled. You aren’t leading a secret or different life, this is just one way your “energies” or whatever you want to call them, get channeled.
Does that make any sense at all? But don’t worry- I’ve often had the same thoughts myself.
Haha, this post made me laugh. I do feel like I have a secret life sometimes too: there’s real life, and then there’s my internet life,where I have all these other friends and people I chat with. I kind of like having these two completely seperate worlds though.
I can’t wait to read your novel.
I too choose to keep my blog from my family and friends in my real life. There are a few people in my real life who read, but for the most part I like keeping it secret. It allows me to get my thoughts and ideas out. In real life its hard knowing what people are thinking even our best friends. If my family and closest friends read the blog I wouldnt be free to write some of the things I do. I am honest in my real life, but for me my blog is like therapy and my blogreaders/friends keep the confidentiality that I would pay a therapist lots of money for! :0)
I’m very much an open-book. I feel like I don’t hide secrets very well, somebody always knows some of my secrets. My blog is pretty public, I advertise the address on my facebook page and my family does read it so I’m always careful what I say, not that I usually want to say anything too private anyways.
I’d just end up pimping my own blog in the interview.
I’m shameless like that.
I don’t really feel like I have a secret life because I’m fairly honest about having a blog. But I can understand how other people can feel that way.
I’m going to have to agree with Jessica. I won’t ever deny that I have a blog because I’m not hiding anything, but I don’t go parading it around. That’s what I have you guys for! :D
This is an interesting subject I often think about. Only a few super-close real-life friends know about my blog. So it’s only people who know me well and people who don’t know me at all. The majority of people I know fit somewhere in between, and that even includes some family members. I prefer my blog readership to be the way it is because I feel more open to be myself through how I communicate. At the same time, I feel like blog-friends/acquaintances have built an image of me based on how and what I write. As a result, I’ve also started a completely anonymous, semi-private blog to deal with stuff I’d like to get off my chest but don’t really feel fits on my regular blog. So, in some ways, I have two secret lives.
I don’t know if that’s because I’m trying to project a certain image, I’m just an insecure wreck, or something else. If it is about image, the interesting thing is that thanks to “repentance night” (my phrase) at some church camps I went to in h.s., my world was shattered pretty early on when some people I knew dropped some bombs about their secrets/secret lives. On one hand, I’m glad, because I’ve now come to expect the unexpected from everyone I know or meet. But I’m also sorta cynical, which I don’t always feel works in my favor.
I want a secret life! Maybe to do that I’d have to scale back the facebook/blog/twitter/linkedin/flickr/etc. hmm.
I learned the hard way about putting people on pedestals as well. Sorry you had to experience that.
I feel bad because I talk about my blog (and my blog friends) but refuse to give people the link. Thus the reason my blog is not listed on my Twitter account. I have followers who know me in real life and I’m not ready to showcase all of my thoughts and feelings to them.
Sometimes I wish my blog were a secret! I do find that I can’t be as honest as possible as a result, but… I do what I can. :)
Most of the people I know in real life have no idea that I blog. I think I would die if my family ever found out I blogged. They still don’t know how I met my boyfriend because they’d most likely freak out if they knew it was from a social networking site. Sometimes it’s good to have a hidden side. If everyone knew everything about you then life would be boring. It’s nice to wonder :P
technically… now 2 people know!!! :)