"Listen, Do You Want To Know A Secret?"

"I've known a secret for a week or two
Nobody knows, just we two

Listen, do you want to know a secret?
Do you promise not to tell, whoa, oh
Closer, let me whisper in your ear....."
Paul McCartney & John Lennon

Mom taught me at a very early age the importance of being able to keep a secret. I don't even remember the precise way in which it happened. I just remember her imparting the necessity of being trustworthy.
Of course, once I started school and was around other kids, I soon understood what she meant about not telling a single other soul if someone told you something in confidence and asked you to keep it secret. e.g., I had a crush on a boy, I told one of the girls I thought I could trust and made her promise not to tell which she did promise. By the next recess everyone was teasing us - not because she told everyone, but because she told one other person she trusted and that person told one other and so on.
Secrets and gossip seem to go hand-in-hand. Once a secret is heard it takes a mountain of will-power not to repeat it. "I know something you don't know, nynha, nynha, nynha." It gives the secret sharer a certain amount of power. I think the majority of people can't resist telling just one more trusted person.
Shortly before I left the Graham Group to move back to SW Iowa, I witnessed some inappropriate behaviour between two people we all thought might be having an affair. In our minds that was the only thing which could account for the favouritism shown by the man (our boss) to the woman. I KNEW I should not tell anyone what I had seen, but there was one other woman I was close with whom had been hurt by the way our boss treated her even though she was on the same level latterly as the other woman. I thought if I told her what I'd seen which more or less confirmed our suspicions, it might make her feel better. I swore her to secrecy, she promised not to tell anyone else. In a few days, other employees were asking me about what I'd seen. The sharing of a secret added to the gossip.
Just as secrets and gossip are partners, so are secrets and trust. Would I ever again fully trust the little girl from grade school or the woman from my office? No. Nor would I expect anyone to trust me again if I've shared a secret they told me. There have been very few people in my life I truly trust. One of them is my spouse. He is undoubtably the most trustworthy person I've ever known. And when you think about how much one partner could hurt the other, even by sharing seemingly inconsequential knowledge, you realize how important trust is.
Which is why I feel so sorrowful for Sandra Bullock and what she is going through right now. It might not be so bad if not for her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes when she credited her growth in her acting ability to Jesse James and "for the first time in my life, knowing someone has my back." I wonder what was going through his mind as he nodded to her and acknowledged her tearful, heartfelt tribute? Probably something like, "I just hope she doesn't discover my secret." Will she ever be able to trust anyone again?
Do I have a specific secret which brought on this blog? No. I have secrets. Some which I will never tell another soul. Some I would only share with the two or three people I do trust. In the grand scheme of life, I would rather be trustworthy than popular.