Secrets: a collective list (anonymous!)

I always promise to keep a secret whenever someone asks me to, but the truth is that I am terrible at it and I end up blabbing

I've always wanted to sing with the Metropolitan Opera Chorus

I used to stockpile peppermint M&M's in my freezer

When I was younger I wanted to have long straight hair like Joan Baez

I never meant to be the class clown

I am much more jealous than I let on

I do love you, I just don't like you very much

I am looking for a new job

In my second year of college I was so badly prepared for an exam that I made a cheat sheet 

I cry myself to sleep when I'm deeply hurt

There are some secrets I have kept as promised and now I still wish I had told someone

Once I kicked a cat because I was mad at its person; it forgave me but I never have forgiven myself

No one knows I gave a stranger money for new shoes

I left an unsigned love letter for the yellow house on the corner, the one that made me smile all winter

I wish we could take a trip together, instead of always traveling alone

I have anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and I don’t want it to be a “secret” anymore in the sense of something to hide or be ashamed of

I had a secret dream of living in Africa but came here instead because the climate is so good for my skin

Whenever my friends tell me secrets I always keep them, but my own secret is that this is easy to do because I often entirely forget the secret thing they told me

My ex-husband “accidentally” let me find out a relatively disgusting thing about himself that he should have kept secret – so I told the world

When a new student from South America arrived in my elementary school, I pretended to speak his language by just spouting gibberish to him, and when he would speak back to me I'd respond as if I knew what he had said, but I really had no idea

I used to fake taking baths — running the water, dropping the soap in, splashing the floor a little bit — it would have been so much easier just to get in and actually do it

I trapped my dog in my playhouse and held him captive until he cried; then I felt really bad

I killed several rats in the horse barn by stoning them as they balanced on the edge of the water trough to drink

My brother and I used to sneak down to the kitchen at night and eat Milk-Bone dog biscuits — they were yummy

Whenever we went to the cold, grimy Rite Aid and the cashier was mean to my mom, I'd steal as much candy as I could fit into my pockets

I have favorite students and will curve test questions to their answers

I have a crush on a same-gender friend but I know my mother would never approve so I just savor the moments with her

I like the L.A. Kings hockey team, but I have to like the Rangers more to fit into my family

Sometimes I fall asleep driving, and I feel guilty thinking about who I might have hurt

I don't like the orange Starbursts

I borrowed a library book that I didn't even like just so a bully I hated at the time couldn't check it out 

Sometimes I make a very healthy meal that doesn't taste as good as I'd hoped, so I keep the leftovers in the refrigerator so long that I have to throw them out "for health reasons"

Sometimes I sit very still near the door in my apartment so that I can hear what other people in the house are saying to each other

Sometimes I tell people I bicycle for exercise when in fact, after only a few minutes on my bike, my hands get too numb to keep going

I ate sushi (and I am vegetarian)

When I was in high school I used to steal sleeping pills from my father’s drugs that were kept out of reach in the  closet

I forged my mother’s signature on a note excusing me from school, only to be caught by the Dean of Girls — who played mahjongg with my mother every Tuesday night

I used to smoke, in my childhood bedroom, out of an opened window

I never feel good enough … at anything

I need to wear eyeglasses but I refuse to do so

I used to use artificial food coloring

I haven't done "spring cleaning" for 23 years

When my dad said "You have a little brother," I wished I misheard him

Sometimes I leave work and think it would be okay if I never had to go back

My sister and I dented the door of my father's van (on the pole going through the KFC drive-through in Ithaca) and let him believe that his business partner, who had used the van the previous day, had done it

I have nightmares almost every night

I take 15 pills a day, every day

I watch crappy reality TV shows and pretend it's research for writing a novel

I struggle to not hate 3 people I work with

I have slept with 26 different men

I'm glad Mickey Rooney finally died

"Peeps," preferably stale, might be my favorite food

I stole a pair of sunglasses from Woolworth's in 1983

I encouraged someone to cheat on her lover, with me

I once stole money as a kid to buy a kite

I accidentally used detergent powder to scrub myself in the shower

During a bio exam, the kid next to me secretly drew my diagrams for me

I love bouncing a ball and I always carry one

I wanted to marry Ava Gardner or Kim Novak or Simone Signore

Once a year I watch these movies: Stand By Me, Spirited Away, The Shaw Shank Redemption, and Cinema Paradiso

Every spring I think about planting myself in the garden up to my knees, and seeing what would happen

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have made it this far without self-destructing

I was once chased across a barnyard by an amorous nanny-goat; it was terrifying

Sometimes I leave a party and realize I was the only redhead; then I wonder if other people think my orange hair is as freaky as I do

I screen my incoming calls so she won't know that I am home 

I once took my mother's engagement ring and hid it because I knew it made her sad

When I was thirteen I stole poetry books from my school library (and I still have them)

When I was four years old I picked a purple and white iris from Mrs Lukasiak's garden and gave it to my mother as a gift  

One Sunday night when I was ten, I set my parents' house on fire, twice in one night; the fire department determined the cause to be lightning

I just sat for a full five minutes trying to think up a new computer password that I would actually remember five minutes from now

I broke my family's garlic press at age 12 and didn't tell anyone, for fear of getting in trouble; then months passed (which seemed like an eternity at that age) as I observed my parents pondering its whereabouts

Once my big brother was mean to me so I stuffed a rag deep inside his car's tailpipe so it wouldn't start and there would be no obvious reason why — a trick I had seen on television, only they used a potato, which made it more obvious

Freshman year of college, I leaned a trash can half full of water against the dorm RA's door, knocked, ran away to hide, and then was horrified when I realized there was nothing at all funny about having flooded her room "just for a joke"

While my mom worked in her office at our church (Baptist), I often "helped myself" to a glass of grape juice from the big bottle that was always kept in a kitchen cupboard and was only supposed to be used for the monthly communion service

When I was in high school, I hid cans of beer under my mattress in my bedroom because no alcohol was ever ever ever allowed in the house

I told a secret to a stone

I speak cat

When my daughters were young I snuck around eating spoonfuls of canned vanilla frosting so they would not catch me doing what I told them not to do

When I sold my horse it felt as though part of my identity slipped away

People think I'm an extrovert but I'm not, and lately it's getting harder to be "up" in public when I really want to be living a more private life

I am the one who ate all the chocolate chips

When I said I was going to Nanette's house I lied — instead I went to Eric's and we spent the morning jumping off his garage roof

It was a clandestine affair and, twenty-five years later, my heart still swoons

I have no secrets