Gia Raquel

My thumb is currently burning because, well, I burned it. I tried lighting a scented candle and I burned the nail of my thumb. You wouldn’t think the pain would last this long, and yet here it is. I even filed it down, but there still seems to be a low simmering slithering through my nerves. Strange.

The other day my friend had a party. When the clock struck ten P.M., we gathered around a bonfire under a little tent, as it was raining. Our knees burned against the hot flames, and complaints filled the air. But they were pushed aside by an interesting string of ‘deep’ questions. Being the only girl at the party, my friends looked at me for interesting questions. So that is what I attempted to give.

What is your worst fear?

What do you regret most?

How would you want to die? And it can’t be through sleep.

Are you happy with who you are?

What was the worst moment in your life?

And so on.

One of my friends had gotten really into this. He kept on asking for more questions, and I had no reason to stop. It made me realize how long it had been since I had revealed some of my own secrets.

This is the art of secrets.

We go through life holding onto our own secrets, scared it can give someone else power over us. And as we grow older, we show secrets as a sign of trust. You give someone else a piece of you, and you can only hope they keep it as safe as you did for all those years.

With me and these four other boys around the fire, I was utterly fascinated by their responses. Isn’t it a bit odd, how you feel closer to someone when you tell them secrets? And what happens when they leave? Does that part of you leave too? I don’t know some of them very well, but I realized, you don’t have to have a secret or sad backstory. I have always assumed everyone has a story. Why can’t some people be okay with their lives?

I had an epiphany that so many of us let pain define who we are. How unfair is that? We paint ourselves with sad hues as if that changes the people we are. But it doesn’t! We are still writers! We are painters! Singers! Scientists! Dreamers! The bad doesn’t take out the good. The sadness you had or have doesn’t dictate who you are. You are who you make yourself to be.

That is a secret I had only learned recently.

The boys told tales of their own sadness, adding heaviness to the smokey air. But it was beautiful. To see a human stripped of their walls, palms flat, eyes open. You are being given something that you’re lucky to receive. Somehow, you’ve stumbled into someone’s heart and they chose to give you words from the very same place.

I look back, and I have many regrets. These regrets often involve my lack of secret keeping. I didn’t know how to keep something hidden. To me, I could trust anybody. I’m sorry to say that the world doesn’t work like that.

These four boys taught me something I had yet to realize. It’s okay to give away heavy secrets lightly. It’s okay to laugh at your own tragedies. You are not defined by the thoughts that haunt you. It’s not such a terrible life.

I have another secret.

I truly thought it was a terrible life.

But honestly…I have forgotten those horrible feelings. They vanished one day.

The secrets of that bonfire stay hidden. They have burned away so no one can read them clearly.