PostSecret started as a community art project three years ago. I printed 3,000 self-addressed postcards and passed them out to strangers in Washington D.C., inviting them to share a secret with me; something true and something they had never told anyone else before. Slowly, anonymous secrets began to find their way to my mailbox. It was just a trickle at first ? but now it's a torrent. I get about 1,000 artfully homemade postcards from around the world every day. To get a better understanding of the nature of the project you may wish to watch
the PostSecret video.
My father wonders why anyone would want to mail a secret to me and has his own ideas as to why more than a million visitors come every week to read soulful, funny, sexual, or haunting secrets at www.PostSecret.com. I agree with him that younger people are more willing to expose parts of their lives that their parents would have kept private and that voyeurism plays a role in the project, too. But I think the whole story behind the project is more than that.
Many of the postcards have been painstakingly created. And the carefully chosen words that voice the secret can be poetic. I like to believe some people who find the courage to face a secret on a postcard and then release it to a stranger are taking a first step on a longer journey in self-reconciliation. Maybe others are searching for grace or a greater sense of authenticity in sharing a hidden part of themselves. Perhaps others have been surprised to see one of their private secrets laid bare on a stranger's postcard ? I know I have.
In the fourth PostSecret book, A Lifetime of Secrets, I have selected and arranged hundreds of never-before-seen secrets that span generations. I have grouped them in loose chronological order to reveal the fascinating ways our secrets change over time and the surprising ways they remain fixed ? no matter what our age. Here are some images from the book.
Along with the postcards I share a messages I have received from people who have created their own way to disclose their secrets. Here is one.
I've had a PostSecret card in my bag for weeks. I kept meaning to send it in but just never seemed to get around to it. So I stuck it to the wall of a public rest room. I had a feeling of relief wash over me ? it was wonderful to know the next person to use the bathroom would know my secret, and a tiny part of my burden was gone.Just out of curiosity I went back in there at the end of the day. To my delight there were at least ten other secrets on the wall, all on pink Post-it notes, ranging from someone who had helped her elderly neighbor take an overdose when Parkinson's had got too much to cope with, right down to the lady who can't walk past cans of fizzy drink without shaking them up.
What a wonderful feeling!
P.S. I'm the fizzy drink lady.
Right now I am traveling to speak at three college campuses. In my next entry, I will talk a little about the humor, pathos and inspiration that can occur at these events.