Post Secret

I used to read PostSecret (here) every week to catch the new secrets and save the ones that moved me most. I probably have hundreds of secrets saved on various hard drives. I was always so disappointed if I forgot to check one week and missed out on new postcards. (There are no archives.) I haven't been keeping up with it at all for some time now, and I'd like to say that it's because I don't need it anymore, but I'm not sure that's true.

Frank Warren started PostSecret in 2005, asking strangers to mail their secrets to him in creative ways and letting him choose which ones to post online. Since then, five books full of selected secrets have been published, the first of which I own. I always put them on my Christmas list but books are less common presents in my house for some reason. I've always thought that Frank Warren's project was such a beautiful idea. I've only mailed in one or two of my own, but like many others, I've chosen to distribute mine on my own. On my eighteenth birthday, my best friend and I made a few secrets and took them to music and book stores, hiding them in the shelves near our favorite books and cds. It's a very liberating thing, putting some personal part of your life on paper and out into the world for someone else to find. It can even be therapeutic, if done for the right reasons.

For example, if you submit something to PostSecret just to see your creation online, you'd be better off getting a blog. At this point, Frank Warren probably gets more mail than he can read in a week so the likelihood of your secret showing up online isn't very high. But internet celebrity is not the point of this project. The purpose is to free yourself from whatever might be holding you back, and if that's all you need, leaving a secret for someone else to find is just as effective as mailing one in.

just a reminder

"Today I discovered that happiness is not something we find, it's something we create. This is my first step toward recovery."


I love Post Secret, and I think Frank Warren is a genius.

Today, remember to be happy.

every chance to leave's another chance i shoulda took

There was a postsecret up once that said something along the lines of "I think my scoliosis is a physical manifestation of how twisted I feel inside." The way I feel today made me think of it. I actually probably have it saved somewhere but I don't want to take the time to find it.

I'm having an awful day so far. I feel horrible. My head has been spinning since I woke up and I think I'm probably dehydrated again but I just feel like utter crap. Tired, weak, shaky, dizzy. Everything at once. On top of that, I'm missing everything about last year so much today. I miss living five minutes from everything I know. I miss Tustin so much lately. I miss Ashley so much. I can't wait to see her next month. I feel like the quality of my life went down like crazy since we moved. I'm not happy here. I hate how hard it's become to stay positive. But that might be partially because I feel like crap today, so everything around me looks shitty too.

I feel as bad physically as I do emotionally. My life hurts. Not a good day.

are you username ladiesman217?

Like I said before, I never know what to write about in a blog until my fingers hit the keys. I've been out of town for a few days, or back in town depending on how you want to look at things, and I kind of wish I knew where my journal was and that I'd had it with me. I haven't written anything tangible in a while but I still can't find a lot of things. Such is moving-life. Anyway, I opened the Blogger tab today as well as one for myspace, facebook, AP, my bank account, and surely others. Then I remembered that I wasn't home or with a computer on Sunday to read PostSecret so I immediately opened a tab for that as well, and voila, I had a topic. :)

If you know me well, you've probably heard me talk about how great I think PostSecret is. (not a good word to end a sentence with, but it'll do.) The entire project just blows me away and I'm so glad that Frank Warren thought it up one day and had the courage to tell someone about it and I am so glad that it took off like it did. I'm thankful for every person that has the courage to send in a secret of their own for the rest of us to read and relate to, or just to think about for a few seconds.

I've been saving secrets every week for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I miss a week, but I've got quite a collection going on various hard drives around the house from more than a year's worth of Sunday updates. One of the first secrets I saved was a simple one, without any words, but just a drawing. The card was painted dark grey and had a heart to one side, outlined in gold and filled in with black. It's been posted in many a myspace bulletin and I've showed to a million people, I'm sure. I never really knew what it meant but it has been my favorite card for just about as long as I've known what PostSecret was and it means a lot to me. More so now than it did in the first place, especially since I found out that I knew the person who sent it in.

I was discussing the site and the overall project with a friend one day and we were talking about favorites or something and I showed him the beautifully simplistic card with the heart on it and he confessed that it was his own. He explained what it meant to him when he made it, that it was about how he felt that he always had good intentions, the heart with the golden lining, but it was consistently empty because his intentions were more often than not ill-received. I wish I had saved the conversation so I could remember it better but I'm pretty sure I got the meaning somewhat accurately. Anyway, I'm so thankful for even just knowing that connection that I have, because that's a huge part of what PostSecret is I think. It brings complete strangers together (strangers are just friends waiting to happen, will you be mine?) on a weekly basis and lets each and every person know that they are not alone in whatever they're feeling. Everyone's got a secret, whether they realize it or not, and it's almost a certainty that someone else can relate.

Anyway. That's my fun little rant for the day. :) I strongly urge you to stop by the website (right here) and take a gander. It'll only take a few minutes of your time. And if you're too busy for that, I'll just show you the card that spawned this post in the first place. I hope you all had a lovely weekend (whoever reads this) and I wish you a swell week to come.