I recently realized something about this obsession I have about confessions that makes me feel a little better about having it in the first place.

Oh. Let me explain: I freaking love confessions. I know that sounds vague, but, really, it’s a blanket statement for sure. I love making confessions (always rewarding), I love hearing others’ confessions, I love poking and prodding at someone in hopes that they’ll confess something deep and self-denied to me. I adore it.

I don’t know where this started, although I have my hints that it was around the time I started getting to that age when the reality my parents had worked so hard to create for me started so show its cracks; that’s when I really started digging and spelunking through everything in my house, searching for clues as to who these people really were and what life I was actually a part of. Although I found many, many things that were deeply hurtful, I also came upon some truths that were revelatory and profound - secrets I wished we all had the courage to talk about openly. Both the disparaging truths and the joyful ones I uncovered gave me a high I’d never before experienced and I became hooked on “knowing The Truth”. I put this in quotations because, frankly, after 15-ish years of being one of those people who beats down doors and annoys people into giving me whatever “Truth” I’m searching for, I’ve also learned that “Truth” is, as with everything, completely subjective.

But, then, THAT also makes it incredibly addictive as well.

Fine. So I’m nosy. I’m impertinent and stubborn and violating of privacies and pushy and I like to know things that are noneofmydamnedbusiness. In high school, this was a way for me to feel superior to others, by finding the cracks in their facades (and then immediately running to spread the word, despite the actual reality of the situation or whether or not it was relevant…) However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun keeping the truths I uncover about others to myself, which I only just noticed here recently. Now, when I learn something “scandalous” about someone else (whether from my probing or from a private confession), it doesn’t shock me or send me into a flurry of gossip like it used to; it, instead, gives me pause to stop and consider this other person, their reality, the context in which their “secret” had/has to exist, and what that teaches me about compassion. (No, REALLY. I swear.)

And, ultimately, what I really, genuinely realized about myself is that I love collecting secrets and hearing confessions for no other reason than because those moments are where real humanity lies. Not in these characters we create to present to the world, but in those deeply-seeded truths about ourselves. I don’t, by any means, believe that people should be defined by these confessions/secrets/truths, nor do I think we should all run around wearing them on our sleeves (although I have a tendency to do that, which, frankly, is pretty damned juvenile of me). I do, however, believe in sharing our secrets with those we trust and, when receiving the secret truths of others, holding them in reverence and without judgment.

So, say what you will about all this being a well-developed justification for snooping/voyeurism, but I’m not really ashamed to say that I’m addicted to knowing what’s under the veil of humanity, regardless of the damage or joy it contains.