About Keeping Secrets

If there's anything I've learned lately, it's that life will throw the unexpected your way. I am grateful that I have learned to be better at going with the flow, taking those highs and lows like a pro... and dealing with the spills in due course.

In a conversation with someone close recently, I was advised to keep a specific thing about my life secret - even from, and even especially from, the one person in my life who is supposed to be closest to me. This, out of fear that it would come back later to bite me in the ass.

While I believe that everyone is entitled to privacy, I firmly believe that there are some experiences that need to be shared. I don't look to go out and advertise it - but neither am I ashamed of it. In fact I am almost proud of it most of the time - because it signifies strength and a set of unique lessons learned that I would not otherwise have had the opportunity to.

I am sure that the journey I've taken from that moment on has made me a better person - a warmer, more loving and more understanding person in the face of a lot of things.

My brother has often told me that I'm too soft. I am sure he often worries about me getting hurt because of my gentle nature which I tend to hide behind a wall of extroversion. I tried to toughen up, and I believe I have. I am more aware now that people can be horrendous beyond belief and do despicable things to one another. But I consciously refuse to stop believing the best of them, until proven otherwise... and maybe even then, there's hope.

I have tried starting out everything warily and with over-caution, but that just does not work for me. Life is too short for me to spend time not being me. I ended up making the wrong choices for myself - and living my life for other people.

Someone else told me that I tend to do things in a big way - that I make life changes drastically and with full force. I sensed a negative connotation there but I chose to take it as a simple statement of the way things are. I mean, I understand why that can be a bad thing, but I wonder if others understand why it can also a good thing. Making big changes has worked for me. The breakthroughs were big and I am grateful for every one of them.

Everything boils down to one man's meat being another man's char koay teow. Both just as good... but different.

If I were to be asked right now what my biggest fear is... I honestly would not know what to say (apart from 'snakes'!). I think it would be that at the end of the day, I will find myself alone in this world without the people I care about who have held up a mirror to my life and helped me define me.

Yes, that would be it. And while that is a fear that stemmed from childhood - which I believe will remain with me for the rest of my life - I also know that it isn't the truth. But please forgive me if sometimes, I forget.