Secrets. For good or ill, we all have them. Not much remains secret for terribly long; guilt brings out our ‘tells’ and happy secrets will always do their best to bubble to the surface because we long to share them. Secrets.

Strangely, there are times when we have no secrets, too. Not just when the latest secret, good or not so good, has been revealed, but that’s often the moment of assessment when one might consider that the slate had been wiped clean. There are times when it seems that all in life goes so smoothly and predictably and transparently that no secrets are generated. Or required.

But most of us crave a little surprise, color, mystery, adventure. At least at times, we rather thrive on the frisson of the unknown, don’t we. I love to feel safe and on track, I crave it. But behind the mask of convention or genteel propriety, there somehow lurks the slightest hint of the curious child, the rebellious iconoclast, and maybe even a tiny, tiny, tiny touch of  the mischief-maker that thinks a secret is a good substitute for the more dangerous sort of thrills that lure adrenaline junkies.

Even though I know that’s a charming little delusion. Secrets can be dangerous.

Still, there is a certain amount of the unknown that fuels my imagination and brings out a part of me that’s braver and more interesting, more dedicated to seeking both answers and new questions, than my overt and ordinary, everyday self. That, I’m pretty sure, is neither a dirty secret nor a secret of any sort at all to those who know me even a bit. But I might surprise you all one day, if it should turn out that I had secret superpowers or was secretly fabulously wealthy or was secretly brilliant. I know it’d be a surprise to me, having been so successfully kept secret from my own self all this time as well. She said, looking demurely coy.