Pretentious, Self-Righteous Essays

Some things are better left unsaid.  Sure.  But are they better left lingering in our minds?  So maybe it is the case that we shouldn’t tell everyone everything about our relationships with them that ails us, then whom do we tell?  Besides those paid to provide ‘professional help’, I don’t think there exists anyone with whom it would be universally “okay” to share.  I feel guilt sharing with even my closest friends.  It’ll always feel partly like gossip, which makes me uncomfortable because of what that would say about me.  I feel this way even if it is true that these secrets need only be kept from certain people and not all people, and even when I know it is my closest friends in whom I can confide.  The problem is that I have this curious feeling that regardless of who it is in whom I confide, I am doing an injustice to the subject of the discussion.

But my heart weighs heavily.  I can’t lie anymore.  Sure, I was always honest with myself in my blogs and private journals, but it isn’t the same as sharing.  It’s having a conversation with myself.  It makes me increasingly concerned about my sanity.  I can’t bear the burdens alone.  Lines were blurred a year ago.  It’s time I clarify things.

My father liked to tell riddles.  There was one that I remember him telling me and my sister when we were about 5 and 7 years old, respectively.  I wasn’t really paying attention, but my sister was.  He looked her right in the eye, and said, “If you are an eye-tee, you are e.”  At least, that’s what it sounded like he was saying.  My sister kept trying to figure out what “eye-tee” and “e” referred to.  He was really only spelling out the word ‘furniture’, which I could pick up because I wasn’t looking at him directly and watching any of the funny faces he was making.

Context is interesting in that way.  I’m hoping that life’s other riddles similarly become clearer when I avert my eyes and stop trying.