Total Truth Tuesday: Can you keep a secret? **updated**

If you're related to me then you already know this.

My Total Truth this week is this: I cannot keep a secret. Cannot keep one to save my life.

If you tell me a bit of deliciously juicy gossip I will promise not to tell. And I will try. Oh, how I will try. But somehow it will slip out. Somehow I will accidentally call my mom and say, "OMG, I have something I have to tell you. But I promised not to tell so please keep it a secret okay?"

And she will promise not to tell. But guess what? This whole not-able-to-keep-a-secret problem I have? It's genetic. And I promised not to disclose which parent I got it from. (I got it from my mom.) (See what I mean?)

It's like I'm the TMZ of the family.

Lest you think I'm only untrustworthy of other people's secrets let me say this. I tell my own secrets, too. All of them. When I have a "secret" about myself or something going on in my life I always call someone and tell them. Even (and often) when I don't actually want to. And sometimes to the detriment of the situation. I cannot sit on a secret. It's like trying to sit still with a fire ant colony in your pants. Painful. Frustrating. Impossible.

I'm convinced when it comes to secrets there are two types of people in this world. People who can lock a secret away in a special mental vault (my sister is this type) and people without any self-control who spill the beans despite their best efforts to the contrary. I'm obviously the latter. And not very proud of it.

What type are you?

Updated: Because I am clearly neurotic and paranoid and having a bit of Total Truth Tuesday remorse, I wanted to say that I am actually capable of keeping real secrets. You know, the kind that actually matter. If you're a friend or relative and tell me something important and confidential I can keep it locked away. It is the, "Don't tell mom, but I just got another speeding ticket." type of secrets that leak out. Mostly among sisters.

Updated yet again: I am thinking I may just delete this post because in retrospect it was not a good idea. It was too absolute to actually be true. And also, I do have things people have told me in confidence that I haven't told anyone (on my word, I really haven't) and I always forget people who know me in real life actually read this and may not realize that I'm prone to slight exaggeration in my self-deprecation. **sigh**