Keeping Secrets

For the past month or so I've had a secret. Neither Scott nor I are good at keeping secrets, not at all. Like money burns holes in people's pockets, secrets explode from our mouths at the slightest provocation. Not OTHER people's secrets, mind you- we're great at keeping others' news under wraps, but any news in our lives gets broadcast pretty quickly. Good news or bad news, we MUST share.
But this news had its own parameters and limits, and if we wanted things to work out the way we wanted, we had to keep things under wraps. See, I'd been offered a job- a brand-new position at the parish where Scott works- doing parish-wide faith formation. It's hard to describe, and I'm not even sure what my title might be... but it's VERY exciting, a GREAT opportunity, not the least part of which is that I'll be working alongside my beloved. It's going to be great.
But there was a wait involved, and a lining up of ducks that had to happen before we could really go and tell anyone. Scott, of course, could do no such thing, and each day he told more and more people, imploring them to promise to keep the news to themselves!!! (which they did, thankfully!) But since I had to time things right at my job, and wait to give notice, and make sure those ducks were in their row before I could even totally plan on this new job, I had to keep my mouth shut.
My spiritual director advised me that it wasn't LYING -which is what it felt like every time a kid asked about Summer plans or something we would be doing next year- but rather, something God and I were "cooking up", and while we were cooking, no one else could be in the kitchen. She urged me to be patient and trust that everything would unravel as it was supposed to.
Curiously, during this time of secret-keeping, I developed a bunch of odd mouth afflictions- canker sores, inflamed gums, a little spot on my cheek that I kept crunching down on when I ate... and I feel like it was all so related to keeping this secret in my mouth for so long.
So this week, the secret's finally out- the ducks are in their happy row, the future looks bright (and not just the job, I get two weeks vacation betwixt!). I gave my notice, and that was a pretty fascinating process (maybe I'll write more about that later) and told a bunch of co-workers, and last night, told the kids- and that went pretty okay too (see "Petition for Margo not to leave St. Mikes YM" group on Facebook...).
So, Ahhhhhhhhhh. It's great to let go of the burden of this secret. Oh wait, I actually do have one more secret. But I can't tell you that, yet... where did I put my Anbesol?