Fly! All is discovered!

I worked with Mrs. Nolan for a number of years. She had big glasses, a quiet voice, a wicked sense of humor, and a smoker's cough. (She still does). I loved her. (I still do). She was friendly with her ex-husband, Bernie, and sometimes told funny stories about him. My favorite was the one about his set of stamps. Not those kind of stamps. The kind you use with an ink pad to make official markings on paper.

Bernie's stamps were mischievous. These are the two I remember: "Sacre bleu!" and "Fly! All is discovered!" Roguish Bernie would run around his office and stealthily stamp memos, files, Post-its. Returning to their desks from coffee, cigarette, and bathroom breaks, Bernie's unsuspecting colleagues would wonder at the inky messages as they looked around the cubicle farm for the messenger, long gone and, no doubt, giggling.

You sort of have to think that everyone's first, split second reaction was, "They know."

Now, we all have our guilty secrets. Like in the movie "While You Were Sleeping," we have those little icky secrets: the vain Peter had long maintained a family image of him as a child hero on the front page of the local paper for saving a family of baby squirrels, until the adult Peter admits he knocked those squirrels out of the tree before pretending to save them. We too have the slights, errors, and lapses in judgment: not returning the miscalculated change to the cashier, driving home after one too many glasses of wine, barking at your partner when you're really just sad, hungry, hungover, etc. We're not bad or mean people, but it happens!

And sometimes it's worse than that. Maybe we have secret extramarital affairs or longings or confidences. Maybe we secretly wish our grandmother - who ruined our teenage years and our sister's wedding - would just croak already and leave us in peace. Maybe, just sometimes, we feel a bottomless rage at our partner and our kids and just wish we were alone. We're not bad or mean people, but it happens! Sacre bleu!

But guilt for how we feel about other people is just part of it. Oh, if we could fly from ourselves!

I once had a phony-bologna-pseudo boyfriend, who despaired that people would discover that he was a "big fake." This was a person who had achieved vast levels of success by all standard definitions, and inside, he was just waiting to be found out. It's true he was a Phony-Bologna, a person who would probably benefit from being found out, just like the rest of us. But I was flying too...(who isn't?).

For a long time, I stretched my arms out as wide as they would go to surround and support my life. My arms strained and quivered at the stress put on them to maintain yet another level of it's-all-ok-ness. Fly?! No! I shall strain and maintain. I shall crumble and crack spiritually; I shall develop sores on the backs of my arms caused by stress; I shall, I shall, I shall...not fly. What ever would happen if I did??!! They'll know me. Sacre bleu!

That was a mistake.

Once I flew - not knowing what would happen next or what I would be left with - I felt a release. I let go of needing to be just right, of a doomed marriage, of keeping it all together, and of a fear that happiness is a right of other people, not me. Those sores on my arms went away. I started sleeping through the night. I was able to be myself. And I realized that we're all flapping and flailing and wishing for a release and recognition of our true selves without judgment. Bernie had a point.

So if we knew we safely could, what would we let go of if we were faced with that cryptic message: "Fly! All is discovered!"