Before you tell me your secret, you should give me the chance to opt out beforehand. You can’t tell me something, then after the fact, tell me that it was done in strict confidence and never to divulge to another person. Now you’ve co-opted me into the process of hiding. But I don’t share the same level of guilt and shame because it’s not mine. I can never personalize it at the same level. Are you asking me to be you? Is that what a soulmate means to you? I’ll never have the affinity to protect something at a personal level that is not personal to me. It’s a bond of faith, an oath, a test really. Will you treat my secret as if it’s my own? That’s an awful big burden to ask someone to bear. So a heads up. Maybe I’ll agree. Certainly for a spouse, a loved one, a family member I may readily commit to undertake this burden. But even in those cases, a heads up is warranted. Already the act of sharing is unburdening, but why the need? Is the secret so unbearable it must be shared? Am I a priest? I’m not sure anyone has a secret so unbearable it can’t be shared with the world. Not even the one secret we believe sets us apart from all others but really binds us all together. I am guiltless, artless, and have no problem sharing this secret with the rest of the world in a cavalier way. That secret? That all of this, this long journey into night, is tiresome, wearisome, and pointless. Is that what you are afraid to say? Well, don’t. Say it out loud and laugh. Who knows. Our laughter might have the power to raise God from the dead.