Tangle Weed is defined as a plant species that entangles creatures that pass through it, slowing down larger creatures, or stopping smaller ones entirely.  Shooting at or near it, will make it retract into the ground.

Secrets are like Tangle Weed. Ponder the woman who turned down a marriage proposal from a man she considered her ideal mate & that she cared deeply for.  Eventually, she ended the relationship; she was afraid that marriage to him would reveal her secret.  What was the secret that would make her walk away from love?

She didn’t have a college degree.  She believed that if he knew she’d dropped out in her sophomore year, he would lose respect for her, and no longer value her as a mate.

Just like Tangle Weed… Shooting at or near it, will make it retract into the ground.

When I shared stories about my family’s struggle with addictions in a previous blog, and reflections of my relationship with my step-father in Blaze’s JT topic--I felt free.  The power those secrets had no longer enslaved me; they could no longer serve as weapons in the wrong hands….or minds.

I’d become accustomed to hiding my truth, in an effort to avoid judgment.  I didn’t want to be categorized as the ghetto chick that made good.  When questions about my family or background would come up, I would bob & weave and give clearly-obscure premeditated answers.  In other words... engage in lies of omission.

Just like Tangle Weed… entangles creatures (in the lies) that pass through it.

Secrets interfere with our ability to make authentic connections; to genuinely give another human being the opportunity to really know us…and to love us…in spite of what’s hidden in our closets.  

Secrets encumber our paths to relationships (both romantic & platonic) and place boundaries [from day 1] on how deep the interaction can go.   They make having relationships where “keeping it real” is more than just the colloquium of the week -- difficult. 

Just like Tangle Weed…it slows down larger creatures, or stops smaller ones entirely. 

I’m not advocating spilling your guts to every Tom, Betty and Raheem you encounter, nor am I saying that secrets make great conversation for a first date.  Although I did date a guy that asked me during our first intimate encounter—to tell him something nobody else knew.  I guess secrets make good aphrodisiacs’ as well…but I digress.

I’m just reflecting on the power secrets have, and how that power is diminished when they’re no longer – so secret.  These days…when I’m tempted to bury  them so deeply in the back of my closet, that even a CSI couldn’t find them; I remember one of my grandmother’s favorite sayings: “I would rather be disliked for who I am…than liked for who I am not.”  Parts of my life may not be pretty, or read like a Cosby Show script, but they are what they are…and I refuse to allow them to be my metaphorical Tangle Weed.  I refuse to be strangled by my secrets.

FH FAM:

Has the desire to keep a secret hidden ever slowed you down, or stopped you entirely in some aspect of your life?   (literally or figuratively)

Have you ever had someone reveal a secret to you that changed your outlook of them, or the relationship you had with them?  How did you feel/react when that happened?