The Cat’s out of the Bag…

Some things are best kept under wraps. Mostly for us. The “things”, probably don’t care, and would rather be out there, breathing freely. 

We keep them under wraps, shrouded in doubt, uncertainty, insecurity, lack of faith… questioning the need, the sincerity.

Now, I don’t like secrets. Not to say, I like to shout out from the rooftops either. Yet, that is exactly what I do - a few weeks ago. From our generation’s equivalent of rooftop – the social media.

I belong to a small writers group and we have a ‘secret’ group on Facebook. Now instead of posting something to our ‘seeecret’ group, I post it such that anyone with access to my facebook page can see it. Of course, it is the very thing I don’t want anyone to know about (other than the five members of my group).

Ahem… that is exactly why I choose to write about it, here?? Oh well… And since I feel particularly reckless, here it is:

Yikes! The meeting minutes and monthly goals are going to haunt me! A’s in Japan, A’s away at camp, and I am supposed to be working on that novel.
Haven’t written a single line…no, not a single word. If Rick Riordan, or someone else writes MY novel before I do, hope you ladies will hand me tissues for the sea of tears…Sigh…

Ha! Now, before you admire my courage, be aware that only my facebook friends read this, the blog does not have metadata and other fancy things to make it pop on searches. Why, I just realized, it doesn’t even mention my name. Hmm… but let's not digress...

Funny how that happens. The very thing we guard, holding tightly, not allowing to escape, slides out of our hands, like it is nothing…  sticky clicky fingers, social media, or not.

Mortified, I gasp, delete it. By now, some folks have already commented on the post. More mortification. I write a flurried message to only the closed group. I check fifty times before I click ‘post’. My kind friends assuage the faux pas.

It is kind of funny, I tell myself. Surely I will have a good laugh later. I do. Yet, I don’t go near the computer. I don’t write at all. Not the novel, not even my silly blog. Maybe I am busy. I am. Or so, I tell myself, convince myself.

Now this book is not a life’s dream or anything like that. I am too old and curmudgeonly for dreamy-eyed visions or the accompanying fervor.

It is simply a possibility. A faint one in that. Yet, there is a certain vulnerability that goes with it. A certain holding of the breath, a certain hesitation to say it out aloud. To allow it to escape my lips. To admit it. Accept it. To allow myself to dream of it.

Is this what boring middle-aged people do to protect ourselves from disappointment? That pile can look larger than life if we choose to examine it. But again, why would we want to, right?

At what point/ stage in our life, do dreams get fitted into cynical shelves of practicality, cased no longer in rose colored glasses, but stark reality-filled ones?  

When do we stop shouting things out from rooftops, committing, admitting, allowing them to be, to float about?

Of course, there are other instances, when it may simply be hard to say it out aloud – not because we want to keep it secret, but there is some emotionality attached to it.

Does keeping it under wraps increase our vulnerability, our sensitivity towards the matter? Is this then a silly little example, a silly little experiment?

I don’t know. However, I do know this... I don’t write a single word in weeks. I write this is in twenty minutes. My thoughts move, my mind dances, my fingers fly on the keyboard - they know exactly what to do. A momentary calm prevails. Novel or not, I hope I will always give myself permission to do this.