She said she didn’t have any secrets.  I wanted to believe her.  She started talking and I started listening.

I’ve been wanting to write this for a while.  I’d planned to tell you about it.  But, you know, it’s a secret.

We all have our secrets.

My grand daughters are already whispering and talking about secrets they know.  Of course they share them with the grandparents.  That’s easy.

Those first secrets started a long time ago.  We were just kids with a few secrets of our won.  We promised.   The promise where you cross your heart and hope to die.

Secrets.

The password to get into the clubhouse. Where Dad kept his girly magazines and that bottle of gin out in the workshop.  Big brother smokes cigarettes when Mom is out of the house.

That sort of stuff. I think we outgrew those. We don’t have secrets where we hope to die anymore.

In high school, we created more secrets.  And, they started getting serious.

Mostly they were about teenagers and crushes.  Who likes who.  Who is passing love notes in class.  Who kisses who. French kisses. Who got to first base and who made it to second.    Sneaking out of the house and drinking a beer or two.

We swore we would never tell, never share.  We lied.  We said we’d take those secrets to our graves.  Some of them were so important,  we will.

We grew up some more. Then we shared real secrets.  The kind that get heavy with time.

There was this guy,  he got a girl pregnant, his parents paid for the abortion, they made him work all summer to pay the bill. Then, they gave him a new car.

There was the girl who went on a dream date with the King of Football.  She said No. And No again.  That didn’t stop him.  She came home and cried for a week. And it changed her forever.

Another girl, eloped during spring break of her senior year in high school.  They married, her father had the marriage annulled.  She went to college, joined a sorority, was a college beauty and still had a broken heart.

A guy I worked with, his high school girlfriend was pregnant.  He left town, got a job on a drilling rig.  She went to South Carolina her senior year of high school. Came home with a sadness in her face she carried until the day she died.

A married woman found a lover and they met every Wednesday night.  Her husband thought she was at church. She laughed about it, it was fun.  Then her husband died, she found out having a secret lover was no fun anymore, but by then it was too late.

The local tycoon who reported his car stolen after he fell asleep at his girlfriend’s house.

Big secrets.

I learned a lot that I can’t talk about, not even now.  Stuff I can’t discuss.  I made a promise and I’ll keep it.

She talked about her secrets.  They’re confidential.

Please feel free to share.  I welcome your comments and thoughts.  Contact Mike Windham at [email protected].  You can follow my blog at mikewindham.com.