Everyone has a secret

Some people keep a journal, some tell a friend and some keep their feelings bottle up inside. But I believe everyone has a secret about their life that they aren't quite willing or ready to share with the world. \nMaybe you secretly miss your boyfriend or girlfriend from the seventh grade or maybe every time you go to the store you shoplift. Do you wish you had the life of the girl in one of your classes? Maybe you secretly lie awake at night and wish you could break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend of five years. \nWhat if I told you there was a place that you could tell someone your secret, without being judged, and no one would ever know it was your secret. No one would ever know that you secretly, "got a parking citation and so did the car next to me. I replaced the ticket on the car next to me with mine. My ticket got paid. And the one I took? I mailed mine to Postsecret."\nPostsecret.com is an "ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard," according to the Web site. It's there for those who are ready to share their secret with the world. \nThe site was started by Frank Warren in 2004 when he began encouraging strangers to send him homemade postcards with their secrets on them. He isn't a doctor, a lawyer or a teacher. He is an artist. He began posting the postcards on his blog site and the phenomenon caught on. Warren, who lives in Maryland, has received more than 10,000 postcards from around the world. Postsecrets.com is updated every Sunday and displays an average of 30 postcards per week. \nGrowing up, every time any of my girlfriends shared a secret, the other girls would always chant, "Secrets, secrets are no fun. Secrets, secrets hurt someone." I can remember sitting on the swing at recess, shaking my head in agreement as they chanted. While I now find the saying very immature, I think its meaning is still important.\nSecrets can hurt if they are kept bottled up for too long. But they are often hard to share because the secret has potential to hurt a person's feelings. For example, one of the secrets on the Web site this week is, "I get angry at every mother who does not love her child as much as I would love mine, if I could have them." Kinda a tough secret to swallow. \nWarren provides a safe place for strangers to find comfort in their sometimes-hard to say or share secrets. When reading the secrets, even I feel comfort knowing somewhere, someone will spend their paycheck on heels when they get their Ph.D. or loves the way their ass looks. \nImagine the release the secret-keepers must feel when they send their homemade postcard off to Warren's house, or especially when they see their postcard appear on the site. And the beauty of it all is that they are not only rid of the secret, but no one knows it was them who sent it. \nAt the end of 2005, Warren had a display of thousands of postcards he had received as a solo art gallery in Washington D.C. More than 15,000 people attended and The Washington Post called it "one of the five best art exhibits in Washington in 2005." Who knew that telling the truth about the way you feel would be such a popular idea?\nWarren also compiled a book, "Postsecrets: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives," of the most requested postcards and some that have never been seen. I purchased my copy earlier this week from Amazon.com. \nThrough reading the secrets on the Web site and the book, I saw a wide array of emotion and honesty. Some just shared a secret of betrayal, while others confessed a secret of hope and happiness. But all the secrets are equally as important and beautiful. \nI didn't hear about the Web site until this summer, but I have checked the Web site every Sunday since then. And I hope now that you know about the site, you will check it out, too. \nFor those who are interesed in sending in a postcard, here's what you need to know. \nYou can reveal anything as long as it's true and you have never told anyone. You must create your own 4-by-6 inch postcard. Mail the postcards to: PostSecret, 13345 Copper Ridge Rd., Germantown, MD, 20874-3454. \nEveryone has a secret, but you don't have to keep yours anymore.