Four years ago I posted a blog about being Mormon and gay. For some reason that blog comes to mind every year around this same time of year, even when Facebook doesn't remind me. I went back this year and was reading some of the conversations I had with people after writing this blog. During that time I learned that were a group of people who had a conversation about my blog, and that they criticized why I would post something like that on Facebook and why I would "make it a big deal." Ironically, my blog specified the exact reason "why" I felt it was important to share.
"Secrets have power, and that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept secret and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, with even one other person, will change them." - Erin Morgenstern
I shared for that exact reason. I felt like keeping it a secret was giving it power over my life, and I needed to change that, and change it fast. Sharing it did exactly that. The power diminished, the secret, once shared, was changed, and that was exactly what I needed.
Someone recently mentioned my blog and promised to keep it private because they didn't want to "out me." I told them there was no such need. When I wrote it, I knew it would be public. That means it's available to be shared whether I'm aware of it or not. It means there are people who know even if I don't know that they know. It also means that people I've met in the last 4 years since writing that blog might not know because they don't know the blog exists, and I don't feel the need to talk about it very often. And that doesn't bother me. Nobody needs to know this fact about me to feel like they "know me." Because it is not a singularly defining feature. I am many things, and no one person knows everything about anyone anyway. I cannot be "outed" because the fact is already out there whether people know it or not. I don't care if people find out, because it's just me.
Sharing did exactly what I hoped it would. My life is no longer controlled by my attractions to the same sex. My life is instead centered around my family and my goals, and trying and failing to keep the house clean, and trying to find a house, paying the bills, and other perfectly ordinary things. And the fact that I experience same sex attraction seems equally ordinary, and is just sitting in a pile of other ordinary things, instead of being the noose around my neck. That’s not to say it’s not a trial, just like plenty of other ordinary things. It just does not control my life.
I hope to teach my children that no secret is worth the power you give it to control your life by keeping it.
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