Family Secrets

On the face of it, to people who don't know me well, I may seem like the poster child for a bland and unremarkable life.  And though I complain sometimes that the scope of my existence is dull and predictable, the real truth is that the life I have now has been carefully cultivated and is not a reflection of  the cards I've been dealt.

Family secrets are obviously not in our private domain. The fact that this is something so rarely talked about makes it impossible to guess how many people I've known have pushed some uneasy knowledge far  back into the recesses of their mind.  Or worse, perhaps, let it fester in the forefront, affecting choices and decisions.  Defining them.

These secrets can involve someone whose life doesn't directly influence yours, which makes it more of an embarrassment.  The cousin who is an alcoholic; the aunt who has a cocaine addiction; an uncle arrested for porn on his computer - nothing you want to be broadcast to your friends or co-workers, but far enough removed from you and your life that it doesn't keep you up nights.

Or, conversely, they can be less sensational secrets, but the kind that have far reaching consequences like a stone skimming across a pond. Sometimes I marvel that decisions made by someone else decades ago has helped shape me into the person I've become.

If I look at things clinically, I can see that many of my life choices have been a direct response to my own collection of family secrets.  At least the ones I knew about.

In the last year several more long buried secrets have come to light after a bit of probing. It took me awhile to digest these revelations - to take some time to see how these truths fit into my life.  They were unsettling truths, upending the story I'd always believed - the story I'd always been told.   

Recently I had the opportunity to spend some time with one of my cousins.  We talked about our family secrets and the repercussions of guarding those secrets so ferociously, even within closed familial ranks. There were some tears, some regret, but more importantly, lots of love and forgiveness.  

I can be whoever I want to be, I've decided.  Family secrets  shouldn't have the power to  define me.  I am writing my life story day by day, moment by moment, and I am the author- no one else.  I realize that these secrets have influenced the kind of wife and mother I am, but for that I'm really quite grateful.