PostSecret

I suspect many of you already know about PostSecret - but just in case you don't - I wanted to tell you about it.

PostSecret is amazing. I read one blog a week and this is it - you can find it at www.postsecret.blogspot.com - some weeks it makes me cry, some weeks it makes me laugh, almost every week I feel honored to be reading the secrets.

I'll tell you a little bit about how I found out about this blog - I read an article somewhere that talked about Frank. He'd decided to try an experiment in his small town (Germantown, Maryland). He handed out blank postcards and asked people to anonymously mail them the secret they'd never told anybody. People created art on these postcards, put their deepest darkest secrets on them, and mailed them to Frank. After a while, he stopped handing out the postcards but he kept getting them, from people all over the world. He'd realized a need - that need for confession of our deepest secrets.

Now each week on his blog you can see the postcards and the secrets - it's my favorite part of Sunday because he posts new secrets each week. He's collected the postcards into a book (and now a second) that you can buy at any bookstore - I own the first book, but I still love the blog, love the immediacy of the week's secrets. I guess it's a little bit voyeurism, I want to read about people's most frightening or inspiring secrets, but even more than that, it's about courage. Each time I read those postcards, I try and tell someone something that scares me, something I've been hiding from everyone.

It's not always easy, in fact it's often frightening, but it feels good to do it. Not just for me, but for those people who are honored (and I am reading PostSecret) to hear something so personal from me. We hide too much of ourselves trying to be safe. Sometimes the reward of opening up is worth the risk.

Kate