In a couple of hours, I’ll be checking up on PostSecret for the weekly Sunday secrets. This has become a tradition for me. I brought the tradition into my dorm when I was at Simon’s Rock. When it became a tradition? I’ve lost count.

But I can remember one of the first secrets I read. It looks something like what I’ve drawn on my math board:

I, too, miss being a little girl. Anything seemed possible back then. Most importantly, my heart was full and unbroken. In the words of Andrea Gibson:“Now my heart is a pressed flower in a tattered Bible.”
Growing up changes everything. My blood pumping organ has yet to break. My expectations, however, have changed. For one thing, I’ll never get back my 4 person family. The little brother, the father and mother figure, and me united. Imperfect but united. I will forever have one foot in that family moment.

…

Families are not chosen the way friendships are. My blood stretches to a half-sister in El Salvador, who’s expecting a visit from her siblings and mommy this year. And it will be so.:) There are enough broken and empty hearts in our family tree as it is.

My blood also stretches to a father who was absent for the first 6 years of life and now again for these past 4 years. I think his heart must have a leak. He’s been trying to fill it with money and women. He’s yet to realize that properly raising my little brother is all he needs.

In fact, I have found much more Family in my mother’s current long-term partner than with my father. Here’s a sketch of us:

….

I often ache for things that require money and time, neither of which are mine.

• Swimming lessons
• Dance lessons and a pair of ballerina slippers (be mine PostSecret?)
• Piano and voice lessons
• Art supplies and art lessons
• And oh, so many books of poetry…

When I ache for such things, I have to remind myself how selfish I am being.  I have a mother who smothers me in love, a woman who has made sure there is always food on the table and a roof over my head—even if that roof is shared.

I have the greatest thing anyone could ever ask: unconditional love. While life is full of impossibilities, love rightfully changes things.