Secret’s out!
That is to say, my lovely blogtacular sister knows I have a blog, because I commented on her blog while (b)logged in as my blogself. And then she wrote about it on Facebook, so who knows who will know next??
Funny, because I was already thinking about writing today about how I’m not good at keeping secrets. I keep almost mentioning this new endeavor to people, especially my husband, and then reminding myself that it’s a wee experiment of sorts, to see whether people will find it by other means than me directly telling them. Clearly, this is one way.
Thus, my original audience, the ether, is disturbed by my first human witness. It swirls about, distracted, no longer really paying attention, wondering if there will be others.
Speaking of secrets, it was just like this (well, sort of) when I got pregnant. We didn’t want to tell the masses until the 12-week mark, just to be on the safe side. But that secret jounced and rattled around inside me, wanting to be let out, hopping up to my lips only to be pushed down again. (Found out at the first ultrasound that the baby was pretty jouncy too.)
Then, by the time we were ready to tell, the secret had been so firmly quelled that it hid from me. For one thing, it seemed somehow imaginary; after all, I couldn’t yet feel the baby moving, and didn’t look pregnant. And we’d been pretending, for the most part, that it didn’t exist. Now I was trying to find ways to tell my co-workers and my fellow dancers, and I couldn’t get the words out. It never seemed like a good time. You don’t want to break into a conversation in progress with “Hey, I’m pregnant!” You don’t want to fabricate an excuse to bring it up. Suddenly I understood why a friend of mine had simply blurted out her pregnancy during a random lull in conversation at an Oscar party: just get ‘er done! But I couldn’t make myself do that either.
As it turns out, I did it the chickenish way at school… I just told my students and let them spread the word. Which they basically did. And with my troupe-mates, the perfect opportunity finally presented itself at the dress rehearsal for our big show: a large group of belly dancers is crowded around the fruit tray, and the longer-term members are discussing how every year during the show, someone is pregnant. “But this year…” No better chance than this exists to say “Actually, I’m pregnant.” The news made our teacher/artistic director shriek with delight.
This also reminds me of two times I’ve unwittingly provided that perfect opportunity to others. (How lovely of me, n’est-ce pas?) Once in the staff room a co-worker was talking with especial passion about some kind of hot dog she wished she had in front of her. Dilovely joked, “Ha ha, you sound like you’re pregnant!” Yes she was.
And another time I was visiting with friends, and the guys and the girls were preparing to engage in separate forms of entertainment (as gravitationally happens at more get-togethers than we modern folk like to admit), and for some strange reason I said, “So who’s drinking tonight, the guys or the girls?” What kind of bizarre question is that? Seems the pregnancy angel must have planted it in my head, because it was the Question that was needed for my friend to reveal the news.