I’m going to let you in on something Mount Holyoke. It’s something that I don’t know if many people know about me. I love secrets. I really, really do. I love overhearing random things said in the bathroom, I love finding old letters shoved inside of books, I love reading all of the different secret communities on Live Journal (ljsecret, fandomsecrets, textsecrets and some others I won’t name.) I love Sundays because of PostSecret, and hell, I even love The Confessional when it’s working and people aren’t being stupid on it.

Given my love of secrets, it’s no wonder that I braved the snow that never was and went over to UMass (insert joke here) for the PostSecret event on Feb. 10. I’d missed the time that Frank Warren of PostSecret had come to Amherst, and I was determined not to miss him this time. While I was sitting in the brutal, concrete auditorium, listening to people pour out their secrets for that room chock-full of strangers to hear, I realized that my secret (well, one of them) was my aforementioned love of secrets.

So, why the love of secrets? I don’t really know. At this point in my life, I have places where I can post or read secrets about every aspect of my life. I’ve even had my own PostSecret posted on Warren’s blog before—and no I won’t tell you which one. If you look at it, so many aspects of our lives are about anonymity these days and with this anonymity, there seems to come a certain freedom. Sharing your secrets can set you free is a sentiment shared by Frank Warren, creator of the art project PostSecret. It’s something that I live by but only in the small, anonymous internet way.

There’s something tremendously liberating about just talking about having a crappy day, which is why I’m glad The Confessional is back. Can it be a complete and utter horrible thing with people going mental and hating across it? Of course! There are idiots on this campus just like there are everywhere else. I’m not saying we’re all idiots, but lord knows all of us have our idiotic moments. Case in point— probably this column. But for all of the bad, people also need to see the good it can do. There are moments where people are feeling crappy and need to have the ability to complain about it without people knowing who it is.

The Confessional offers people a chance to talk about the secrets in their lives: the good, the bad and the juicy. It allows all of us to peek in and comment on them. I think that’s the biggest thing about why I love secrets: sometimes they allow you to see both inside yourself and into someone else. Share your secrets, share your souls, create a community but don’t share your stupid. Leave your stupid in the bathroom where it belongs.

Related posts:

1. The Secret Keeper
2. When blogging becomes a secret political tool
3. Dirty Dancing: Cementing Mount Holyoke’s place in pop culture
4. The secret intensity of country life
5. Confessions on the Confessional