Secret Things

I’m fond of a lot of things, but the things that I love the most are secret things. That’s how I think of them, at least. While I do love some things which are secret, that’s not what I’m really referring to. I’m talking about little moments or traditions that you share with someone or maybe a small group of someones, that are separate from the rest of your life and have a feeling of privacy. It’s hard for me to articulate.
Harder still to articulate is how I feel when they stop being secret things. Maybe someone runs into me when I’m with a secret friend and they hit it off, and then they just get drawn into the group and they’re a public friend now, not a secret friend. Or somebody catches an offhanded reference to a place that I go and decides to show up, and now it’s not my secret place anymore.
I don’t mind sharing things with people. In point of fact, it’s one of my favorite things to do. Still, though, I sometimes wish things would stay private and secret and full of joy.
Years later I sometimes look back on secret things that are no longer in my life. Places I frequented or friends that I had or whatnot. These things that felt like they were somehow mine, because I had a quiet and personal relationship to them. A number of these things are gone now, friends that have drifted off or businesses that closed or little tracts of woods that have since been developed.
I feel a greater pang of loss when I remember when they stopped being secret than I do when I remember them going away in truth. Because in some way, they were gone for me when they were no longer my little private refuges in a more visceral way than when they disappeared for good.