If you ask a group of people who they tell their biggest secrets to, most will say their parents or their best friends. Some will even say their parent is their best friend. I have a lot of people I consider good friends, so why does it seem so much easier for me to be completely honest with total strangers? Why does it seem easier to strip myself down and reveal every secret about my past with people I just met or even people online that I have never met?

It seems people are always so quick to talk about their perfect life: how great their parents are, how serious things are with their significant other, how fat their bank account is, and how skinny their legs are. However, nobody seems to want to admit when things aren't as full of sunshine and butterflies as they typically portray to the world. Maybe I just need someone to be honest about the not-so-great. Maybe I need to meet someone who doesn’t know their father or get along with their mother. Maybe I just need to find someone that has had the same struggles as me, who didn’t have a good childhood and was forced to grow up too fast. Someone who has been hurt so many times, yet still holds onto the hope that people are inherently good.

Frankly, I don’t miss my hometown and I’m never excited to go back. I enjoy the 10-hour drive there, but dread the thought of actually arriving. I don't talk to the majority of my family on a regular basis. I visit them once a year, and that's normal for us. I love them because they are family, but I don’t have a close relationship with most of them. A good majority of my friends had really good childhoods, and still have really great lives. They grew up in a loving home and always seem so excited to go back to visit their parents. They spend weekends with their families and talk to them regularly. That makes me so happy for them and is something I will strive for in the future when I have kids of my own. Many kids I went to school with grew up going on fun vacations with family and friends every break from school. Their parents helped pay for school and some even got a new car for birthdays or graduations which is the best surprise anyone could get. Sure, my classmates are nice, but I can’t open up to them, because they don’t understand.

I’m 25 years old and I’m still in college. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life when I was 18 and came to Kansas. All that I knew was that I wanted to get away from Minnesota and I wanted to meet some friends. School didn’t matter to me. I changed my major four times, racked up a lot of student loan debt, failed enough classes to temporarily lose financial aid, and ultimately ended up dropping out. I finally found my passion and went back to school. I'm currently holding a 4.0 because all my concentration is on the two classes that I take at a time. I work full time as a server and bartender so I can pay for school out of pocket and begin to repay some loans. So many people I went to college with knew what they wanted to do and were ready for school. Half of my high school classmates have big kid jobs and some are living in houses they bought themselves. More than half of their younger siblings have already graduated college. Yeah, they are successful, but I can’t open up to them, because they don’t understand.

Maybe I can’t open up to people I know, because I know I can’t relate to them. I know what their lives have been like and I know what their life is like now. So many of these people are nice individuals, but maybe I want to be able to relate to someone before I open up to them. It seems so much easier to be open with all the strangers on the internet, especially my readers, because I don’t know anything about you. Maybe we have lived similar lives, or maybe we have had opposite experiences. Perhaps that's why it is so easy to be honest with you. The beauty is that I know I can tell you anything and I don't have to see you tomorrow, I don’t work with you this weekend, and I won’t have to serve you at my table this morning. When you know someone and see them every day, it’s harder to be honest with them. You know they don’t relate to you in some aspects so you keep those secrets tucked away. Maybe it’s easier to be open with strangers, because I know you can judge me, but your opinion doesn’t matter. And maybe I can be open, because I don’t know what you have been through and what you are going through now. Maybe it’s easier to be open with you, because I know that there is at least one person out there reading this that has walked in my shoes too.

The challenge is finding you so we can share our secrets.