the secret i can't share

the illusion i must preserve

There’s something that scares me. I’m too afraid to tell anyone. It feels too intimate to divulge with another human being, for they could ruin the illusion and eradicate all the hard work it took for me to preserve this. I have kept it so close to my chest that it cannot be defiled by the outside world and its harsh realities, like being trapped in an apocalyptic bunker, paralyzed by the fear of exposure to deadly diseases. The criticism. The rejection. The disappointment. The confusion. The false sincerities. It doesn’t know how to handle those external forces, and I carry the burden of responsibility to shield it from such tragedies.

I have deemed that it only be appropriate to make it known once I know it is real. Maybe I’ll find the courage to share it with a select few—but even that’s pushing it. It would be so cruel to subject it to the brief feeling of flight, fueled by the tastes of naive optimism and delusional encouragements, to believe it could flourish out there. Because what if it doesn’t? What if it gets used to clinging to thoughts of existence and finds I can’t follow up on the promises I gave it? How humiliating would be it be to get its hopes up, to get their hopes up? I’ve lost its trust before, it would ruin me to do so again.

I hear it screaming, wanting to be let out, to be seen. It’s so earnest in that way. Sometimes I can feel myself wanting to give in, to shine a spotlight on it and have the world revel in all its glory. If I were sure it was given every chance to succeed, I would let it run wild. But I don’t. I push it down further into the depths of my soul and do my best to forget about it until I am alone once more. You’re not ready yet, I’ll tell it. One day, I’ll reassure it. Though, some days I find that even I can’t muster up the courage to acknowledge it, begrudgingly keeping it at arm’s length; my modus operandi to ensure its sanctity and protection.

It’s funny, really, I still haven’t disclosed what I’ve been describing: my dreams, my hopes, for myself, for my life. It feels somewhat taboo. Why is it so hard to talk about it with other people? Is it not an intrinsic human desire to want to immediately indulge in the excitement when I catch peaks of light through the dark, grey clouds that have been looming over me, to believe that I will finally witness the sky opening up to me and bathe in the warmth of the sun again? But those moments don’t seem to last very long. The peaks can close up as fast as they open, so much so that I have started to devise an elaborate plan on how I can bottle up as much light as I can before I watch it dissipate before my very eyes.

A potential new career opportunity that’s almost in reach. The international trip simmering on the back burner. My perennial resolutions that linger like old acquaintances. The unknown reciprocated feelings of a new crush. I can’t let them know I want it so bad. To want yet never fulfill would be a self-calamity of epic proportions indeed. My name would be forever etched in stone as the girl who cried wolf, who succumbed to the wolf that swallowed me whole in the end.

I recently finished the book One’s Company by Ashley Hutson. It’s about a woman who goes through a tragic event and suddenly finds a newfound sense of freedom after winning the lottery. She looks to rearrange the world to her liking, to live out her dream of immersing herself in the world of her favorite television show, Three’s Company. She just has one very strict rule: No one was to lay their eyes on it but her. She lives by the idea that dreams can be ruined just by other people knowing about them.

“My eyes inevitably become their eyes. I would see everything from outside myself, from a distant perspective, and whatever I had loved would be ruined. I would see that it was not what I had imagined at all, and it never had been. It never would be again, either. Not as long as others laid eyes on it. Their mere existence took it away from me.”

It’s a belief that’s deeply cynical in nature—that everyone has a hidden agenda to smear the perfect picture of the dreams you concocted in your head. I wouldn’t go to the extreme lengths the character does in the book, completely isolating herself and shutting out the outside world as a resolution, but I do resonate with that core feeling: the irrational fear of facing the consequences from exposing your hopes and dreams to the world. The mortifying ordeal of being known.

It’s not that I think others would intentionally shatter the illusion of my dreams—the ones I’d prefer to leave untouched by the grimes of practicality—but that I’d end up believing them. This would never work. It’s not good for you. It’s unrealistic. This is crazy. You don’t want to go down that path. Or even worse: You can do it. This, you can achieve. It will happen for you. They’re both a poison: one that dares to erode me from the inside out, the other leaving me intoxicated and dependent on borrowed conviction. I cannot allow myself to drink from either.

The survival of my well-being depends on remaining the sole architect and guardian of my dreams. So I let myself swim in the perpetual cycle of my own what ifs and why nots. I safeguard myself from the array of evil eyes closing in. I allow my stubbornness to guide me, this unyielding refusal to be told what to want, what to fear, what to abandon. Maybe they’ll call it arrogance. Maybe they’ll call it delusional. All that I know is that my dreams are too pure to be filtered through the expectations of others. If that means I dwell in the limbo of uncertainty, so be it. At least in here, the illusions are still mine to shatter. Once I’m sure they’re real, you’ll be the first to know.