Birthdays and the Art of Keeping Secrets.

Andrew and I have a tradition of planning surprises for each other for big birthdays. You know, the ones where your new age ends in a zero. When I say tradition, this is actually only going to be the third time that this happens since we have been married.  But the expectation is certainly there. This is where I get the pay off for being just over a year younger than Andrew: I get to set the standard for my birthday the year after! 

When Andrew was 29, we were both working full time and had no children.  So, the budget was a bit bigger than it is now and I went ahead and planned what I knew Andrew would really love: a trip to New York.  I was thinking about this the other day as I remembered that I went to an actual travel agent to book this!  How quaint!  I honestly think this was the last time I ever used one... So I explained to this lovely man in the agency down the road from where I worked that this was a very special trip for my husband's birthday. He entered into the spirit of it brilliantly and even found me a hotel called Thirty Thirty on Thirtieth street.  Perfect!

Now all I had to do was keep the secret. Yes, that was all. No big deal, piece of cake, no problem. Except for the fact that I was madly excited and fizzing with anticipation. The one person I would normally share this with was the one person I couldn't tell!  This proved to be very very difficult! I hadn't foreseen this at all, but it was really very hard for me not to tell Andrew.  On the other hand I couldn't keep completely quiet about it either as he had to book time off work, so needed to be told something was up.

In the end I couldn't do it: one day about 2 weeks from our travel date, I completely mistakenly said something along the lines of '...when we are back from America...'. I then stopped, did a classic cinema moment face and clapped my hand over my mouth.  Then, just to round it off neatly, I burst into tears.  This is not something I do very often, but in this case I just lost the plot!

Maybe it's a testament to a strong marriage that I found it so hard to keep a secret from my husband.  He thought the whole thing was hilarious of course and even more so my reaction.  And he was absolutely delighted with the plans and actually thrilled to have a couple of weeks to look forward to the trip.

In return, a year later, I was whisked off to Rome, where we had a fantastic week.  Of course, Andrew never cracked and I didn't know anything about where we were going.  Having planned the previous year, I was fairly sure it was a trip away and he did have to give me clues about what to pack and which days to book off work. But he was much better than me at keeping the whole thing quiet and not telling me more than I needed to know until we got to the check in desk at Dublin Airport.

Keeping secrets is hard work!  There is even a Wiki How page devoted to this.  It's a list of fairly repetitive hints.  And then there's this: 'you can tell your stuffed animal if you really have to tell someone.' Unexpected and sort of useless as tips go really! Other hints include lying if necessary and pretending you don't have a secret. Helpful. 

Of course the list is catering for people who are keeping a secret that someone else has divulged to them, like that they are cheating on their partner, right the way through to someone planning a great surprise party for their best friend.  Not exactly on a par with each other...  The classic secret conundrum is when you know one of your friends is being cheated on and you have to decide to be the person who knows and doesn't say anything while this continues, or the person who blows the whole thing apart. Thankfully, I have never been in that position.  I would like to think I would tell my friend, but what if I was mistaken? Or what if she hated me for bursting the bubble?  Secrets are complicated.

The thing is that I am great at keeping confidences when this is needed.  But not great at keeping happy secrets to myself. Some good friends are currently expecting and know the gender of their baby - but aren't telling anyone!  No way could I keep that quiet! When we were expecting our second baby, we chose to find out the gender as well.  But I told Andrew beforehand that we should only do so if it didn't have to be a secret. We were keeping the name choices a secret and if I had had to keep more than one, I might have just popped.  Thankfully the scan was incredibly clear and we did tell friends and family that another boy was on the way.

I now have a new secret as Andrew's 40th birthday is approaching. Well, it's actually not for another 13 months.  However, what I am planning needs a long lead in time and I have in fact made arrangements today for the crucial part of the whole shebang. I now have to keep this to myself for a year! Andrew knows something is up as I have already had to check a few dates with him and have access to a bit of money.  So far I have managed to do this without giving anything away! This is where I find out if I have become any better at keeping secrets in the past ten years.  I suspect not however, so I may have to find a stuffed animal to chat to on a regular basis.