A friend of mine recently came out gay. Well, she didn't really come out. She was forced to acknowledge that she was after someone put the secret together from her Facebook pictures. Slowly, everyone we know is finding out and it's like, "Such and such is gay, shhhh."
I haven't digested this as a juicy secret. It has scared me crapless. I know what it is like to have secrets and I could not imagine what it would be like to have one exposed and people treat it like hot news instead of the beginning of a change in my life or as embarrassing.
We all have secrets, right? I am asking, because over the past year, I have heard a lot of other people's from folks who must not have any. And God knows I have blabbed more than my share before I was mature enough to know how nasty that was.
Sitting here, I'd say that I have about three secrets that, if anyone found out, I would go jump in the lake, because there would be no recovery from their exposure. One of them I am pretty sure could get me some jail time.
Knowing this I want to console my friend. I wanted to text her yesterday, but what do you say? "Sorry you got outed. Ouch." Maybe, "Everyone is gay now, keep your head up."
I don't think I will say anything to her, because there is nothing you can say to make certain levels of shame and embarrassment more tolerable. As bad as I feel for her, I am waking up thankful that, for now, my secrets are safe.
