Cool Cactus #12

“Let’s see, who am I this week?” I ask myself this question as I pull up my browser and direct myself to Post Secret. This may seem an odd question, and for most people it would be. But not for me. Here’s the thing. I do something sort of bad. Ever since I first found Post Secret I’ve been submitting secrets. Now, this alone isn’t bad. Plenty of people do it, and it really seems to help them. And the fact is, it helped me when I first started. It felt good to get some things off my chest. And hey, a stamp is a hell of a lot cheaper than a therapist.

It also helped me release my creative side, in that I took a lot of effort to make my post cards reflect the secret I was revealing. It took me hours as I would scour magazines for the perfect images and words to express myself. It was very cathartic.

The problem was, it became too cathartic. I really enjoyed the feeling of seeing my secrets on the web, and I would become slightly depressed when I didn’t see my secret uploaded every week. That’s when it happened. I started making up secrets. I HAD to see my cards up there every week. So I studied the secrets that got selected, both mine and others and I came up with a system. The secret had to be both revealing and artistic. Well, I knew I had the artistic chops. So I just had to come up with secrets outrageous or revealing enough to guarantee that they would be selected.

At first, I went with the loneliness tack. I sent in postcards about how I talked to myself and faked having parties so mom would think I had friends. I figured anyone who would start a project like Post Secret had to be pretty lonely to begin with, so my secrets would resonate with him. And I was right.

The other secrets that were almost certain to be posted were the outrageous and weird ones. So I sent in a secret about how I only ate chicken because I thought they were mean and evil birds. It had the benefit of being weird, and claiming I was a failed vegetarian, because I’d eat chicken.

From there, the secrets multiplied. I could never be sure which secret would appear from week to week, I sent so many. But I could always recognize mine when they appeared. And so, I go to the web every Sunday with one question on my mind. “Who am I this week?”