Charlie GruganTacked on a white four-by-six inch postcard is a cardboard cut-out of a woman’s left hand. On the ring finger, a gold band with a sequin bead, representing an engagement ring. Written in black permanent marker on the back of the hand near the wrist, the words, written in all lowercase letters, “u changed my mind.”
A sappy marriage proposal acceptance? Maybe. However, postcards like these are common for PostSecret, a place for secrets.
Started by Frank Warren in 2005, PostSecret has been revealing people’s deepest, darkest secrets for everyone to see all over the world.
According to postsecret.blogspot.com, “PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.”
According to CNN.com, “PostSecret has now received more than 100,000 cards, up to 200 a day, which have toured the country in exhibitions.”
To send in a postcard, the rules are simple: create a four-by-six postcard out of anything that can be mailed. On the postcard, write or type the secret out. Jazz it up with pictures, photographs, graphics, artwork and anything else that will emphasize the secret.
The only tips that Warren administers are, “Be brief – the fewer words used the better. Be legible – use big, clear and bold lettering. Be creative – let the postcard be your canvas.”
Along with the website, Warren has also published three books, all filled with “extraordinary confessions from ordinary lives,” the tagline for the books.
Some secrets are jaw-dropping, while others make you smile. Some will make you shudder, and others will leave you speechless. “I cried for Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars III.” is written on the top of a postcard with a picture of a starry sky underneath it. At the bottom of the postcard is, “but not for the Tsunami victims.”
Some secrets are vague, like the marriage proposal postcard, others are vivid, and can stop you dead in your tracks.
On a postcard, a picture of a baby labeled, “When I was 16 I had an abortion. When I was 33 I had a miscarriage. I think God was punishing me.”
PostSecret’s website is updated regularly, every Sunday to be exact, and is very easy to navigate. All the secrets are lined up underneath of one another so scrolling down is a piece of cake.
According to nytimes.com, “One virtue of the resulting chronological lineup is that you can look for patterns emerging, certain kinds of confessions clumping together. And clump they do.”
The week of Valentine’s Day was flooded with sappy love postcards. If they weren’t dripping with secret confessions of loving someone, they were oozing with loneliness.
On a plain white postcard, written in sad little letters are “I’ve become embarrassed by how many times I’ve been in love.” In the corner of the postcard, the author has drawn a cowering, naked human being with seven of Cupid’s arrows in their back, bleeding at the wound.
The following week’s secrets were family affairs. Among the screwed up family problems, this typed postcard takes the cake: “My daughter had a double mastectomy today. Voluntarily. Because she wants to be a boy.”
Warren told CNN, “Even though sharing a secret is difficult, in many cases it provides motivation to take charge in life.”
