Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Happy BlogSecret Day!

It's BlogSecret day. Inspired my the immortal PostSecret, (www.postsecret.blogspot.com), BlogSecret is run by Nilsa (www.newsomi.blogspot.com), who has collected secrets from more than 70 blogs, and exchanged them. Every blogger who participated, including me, submitted a secret and recieved one in return. We are to post the other person's secret on our blog, and somewhere, out there, is ours.

So here, unedited, is someone's secret. All I know about this secret is that it was (presumably) written by a human. Though not, in this case, me. The secret is everything between the quotation marks.

"I've racked my brain for days trying to think of what my secret would be. I'm not a very secretive person in the sense that I have a lot to hide so this was pretty difficult. I'm a quiet person and I pretty much keep to myself and those I'm close with, so naturally I don't go parading stuff around. People make mistakes. It's human nature, right? Everyone has to have a something. I eventually realized the something about me, that I'm very embarrassed of. For a big part of my youth, I was a kleptomaniac.
 
I'm not talking about gum from the gas station. I'm talking about cd's, (a lot of) clothes from major retail stores, and basically anything I could get away with. Hostessing at a restaurant was the first job I'd ever had, and believe it or not, when women would accidentally leave their purses at the tables, they were left at the hostess stand to be kept "safe". So no one would steal them. Well, guess what I did? I went through them, and checked for money. I wish I would have gotten caught. I would literally steal $100 worth of panties from a store in 10 minutes tops. I would get loads of clothes and tell my parents my friend's let me "borrow" them. Why couldn't I get caught? I always told myself, "Well, I'm under 18, the most that can happen is community service, and hey - it can't be that bad!". I stole cheap jewelry from cheap little teeny stores. I stole make up from pharmacies. I would take a big bag to the mall, and shove stuff in it while hiding it in the rack, so no one can see. How did nobody see?? It was about the thrill. The rush was amazing walking through the detectors and not hearing them go off.
 
I wish I could have slapped my young ass into the future. I wish I would have known how stupid I was being and how much trouble I most likely caused for those businesses. Seeing a lot of my friends at the time get caught and get in major trouble curbed my appetite for theft. Thank God. Growing up and maturing made me realize how wrong it is.
 
I am such an honest and trustworthy person. I am so loyal, and caring and compassionate. I honestly do not know where that phase in my life came from. I believe it was because I wanted to fit in. My family hasn't ever been a financially comfortable family, and so I felt that was the only way to get the things I wanted, like my friends had.  I don't really want people to know this fact about me, because it's not who I am, and I would never want anyone to feel like they couldn't trust me."

12 comments:

  1. Oh wow. I wish I would have participated in this!

    Thanks for your shirtordress story. It was hilarious!!!

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  2. Man, you are so lucky not to have been caught! And not to have gotten caught up in a lifestyle that continued to this day.

    Congratulations on moving forward.

    -I survived BlogSecret '08

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  3. I had a similar situation once. Thank God everyone I knew forgived me (not to mention pressing charges). And moved on when I did.

    Feel free to be honest about it. I am. Anyone who holds it against me that I once was not so honest as I am now is just not friend material.

    If you want to, go send a few hundred bucks to a charity in the name of the store you robbed. It might help you feel a little better about this. That's what I did.

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  4. My sister was in a similiar pattern as you describe. We were not aware of it in any capacity. After she died, we found the clothes, tags etc......the idea she had "secrets" that were never told was heart-breaking for me. I am glad you shared your secret. I am glad you grew up.

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  5. I'm glad you managed to grow out of that phase without any serious consequences. I know that sounds totally counter-intuitive to justice, but if you know now it's wrong and dumb, what's the point of punishing yourself over it now?

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  6. Ahhhh, the stupid things we did in our youth. Keep perspective when you lean towards being hard on yourself ... at least you didn't physically hurt anyone in the process.

    Live and learn.

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  7. I used to steal a lot when I was younger too. Small stuff, but still the thrill was great. And then I almost got caught, and that was the end of that.

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  8. I'm glad watching your friends got you to stop.

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  9. You know, when I find myself feeling too guilty about my teenage escapades, I remind myself that it is supposed to be a time of tradition and, well, stupidity. There is a reason we can't legally vote or drink at that stage...

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  10. This entry could word for word, have been one I wrote on blog secret day.

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  11. The important thing is you learned and moved on...

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  12. With that last paragraph, I think that I would trust you now. Even if I knew.

    And, you can trust you now.

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