Do You Have What It Takes?

1/23/24

“I’ll keep you my dirty little secret. Don’t tell anyone or you’ll be just another regret. My dirty little secret, who has to know”-The All American Rejects

Funny how something so simple as 3 little words can have such a profound impact in seemingly opposite manners. The 3 words “dirty little secret” has been used in song, movie and book titles and in at least as many ways.

Let’s look at the book turned movie “Dirty Little Secrets”. A young girl grows up in a home raised by a mother who is a hoarder. As embarrassing as it is to her, she keeps the LITERALLY dirty secret. Now I can write an entire piece just on the mental, physical and emotional effects this can have on ANYONE especially children. Alas. I will settle for saying it’s every bit as detrimental as growing up in a home run by ANY addiction or abuse. She hates how she has to hide this secret to keep from feeling ashamed and less than, to the point her mother is in medical distress and the girl tries to clean up a lifetime of her “dirty secret” before she calls the ambulance for help. While there is a certain dark humor to that, the reality of her pain silently drowns out the laughter.

“Dirty little secrets. Dirty little lies. We got our dirty little fingers in everybody’s pies…”. Don Henley was a part of the phenomenally talented group, the Eagles but was also one of their main driving forces and had a successful post Eagles career. The name of the song is “Dirty Laundry”. Yet again I could write an entire piece just on this song and yet again I will nutshell it here. It’s a sad truth of our culture. While we don’t want others to see our own dirty laundry, we like to see the dirty laundry of others to allow us to feel a certain smugness, if you will, so our laundry doesn’t look so dirty next to theirs or to know that we aren’t the only ones with stains on the fabric of our lives.

There are countless times these three words are used, but the final example in this piece is a song called……wait for it…..yep, “Dirty Little Secret” by the punk band The All American Rejects. It is where the opening lines come from. While the previous examples are damaging enough, this kind of dirty little secret threatens your self worth like no other. My opinion is because this is one dirty little secret you signed up for, consciously volunteered for. But did you REALLY know EVERYTHING you signed up for? Did you read the fine print? Did you know who the author was and who was holding the contract? Did you know what the REAL cost was going to be? I know, you probably thought you had/have this as you continue on after overcoming the guilt as the exhilaration moves in. Little by little you settle in, even anticipating the next contact and the huge rush of endorphins it will bring. The perceived risks seem to balance out each time y’all get away with it. Or do they?

Do you REALLY realize that you are WILLINGLY being someone’s toy, someone’s “not good enough to be my everything”, fuel for a narcissistic bonfire? Do you really realize that addiction (of any kind) isn’t your dirty little secret but that it will reveal you to be the dirty little secret? YOU are someone’s DIRTY LITTLE SECRET. Oh my love, you deserve to be so much more.

I know there are MANY areas of my life where I didn’t know everything I was signing up for. I never thought for a second that I could ever be an alcoholic or addict. I never thought I would join the ever growing ranks of divorce (though the second time I knew nothing is set in stone). No I didn’t read the fine print, who wrote or held the contract. I DID NOT KNOW THE TRUE COST.

If you re like me, you have asked yourself on at least one occasion, “ how did I get here? How did I get myself in this bind? Show yourself a little grace. There is another song that I often reflect on and use as a reminder of just how we get ourselves into these chaotic, painful messes. It’s called “Slow Fade” by Casting Crowns. The chorus goes like this: ” It’s a slow fade, when you give yourself away. It’s a slow fade when black and white have turned to grey. And thoughts invade. choices are made. A price will be paid when you give yourself away. People never crumble in a day…”

These dirty little secrets wreak so much havoc in our world today; in us. It doesn’t seem to matter if these secrets were of our own making or if we were unwilling participants in the secrets of others. There is a big difference in who you are versus what you have done. We often blur that line. Our self loathing tells us we are below the whale scat at the bottom of the ocean. That we are the dirtiest secret of all. While we sometimes don’t have a choice in the secrets that we become a part of, NEVER sacrifice the very essence of your being, your identity, your worth, to be ANYONE’S dirty little secret. You know what they say about secrets, that they only grow in the dark. Step out of the dark and into the light and walk in the royal purpose you were created for.