One of my deep dark, horrible, shameful secrets is my inability to have it all together. You see, I’ve managed to somehow trick people (my professors and bosses, in particular) into believing that I am the queen of balance! That I can manage multiple projects and responsibilities better than most, get all of my work done on schedule and look absolutely flawless in the process. (Ok, that last one might only be true in my head).
So that’s why I heard an audible gasp when my friend walked into my apartment. There I was, sitting at the dining room table, hunched over papers, highlighters and pens, with tears streaming down my face.
“What’s wrong?!” She asked, a littler louder than she had intended.
And it all came out. I told her that I was not who I always pretended to be. I’m not the girl who has it all together. I told her that I was overwhelmed by my schedule and the amount of work I had to do with school and internship.
After I was done, I waited. Surely, she would never speak to me again. She would call me a fraud and walk out of my apartment.
Instead, she grabbed a pen, paper, and a calendar and spent the next two hours with me, helping me organize my schedule, and breaking up my project into manageable chunks.
Loved for My Flaws
It made me think a little bit different about deep dark, horrible shameful I-can-never-tell-anyone secrets. Maybe, when we trust others enough to share the secrets that we are most afraid of, we can find love, rather than rejection. There’s something to be said about being honest about our flaws. It opens us up for love and protection. I realized that day, that I’d rather be loved for my flaws than put on a pedestal for my so-called perfection.
So now I’ve got four deep dark, horrible, shameful, I-can-never-tell-anyone secrets. But maybe I won’t have them for long.
“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, NIV).
Jael Amador writes from New York, New York.
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