A small world

Here are a couple things worth noting:
1) This weekend I hiked Tome Hill in honor of the Easter holiday. I waited until Saturday so I could miss most of the crowd, but there were a few stragglers joining me on the morning ascent. Now, most of you know that I’m not Catholic, but I have always felt united in faith with the folks who make the yearly pilgrimage. Tome is certainly a holy place. You can’t make the trek without being changed for the better. Because I’m generally not one to address spiritual things in this forum, I’ll spare y’all the details, but I will say overhearing a family reciting the Lord’s prayer and then helping their cane-weilding octogenarian matriarch back down the hill was particularly moving. It’s days like that when the world feels a little cozier-- like we’re all in it together and we’ve got one another’s backs.
2) And speaking of a small world, let’s talk about how microscopic things can get when you are an LDS single adult about my age. There are so many connections that anonymity is absolutely impossible anymore. And I’m not just talking about within my small congregation, or even my relatively small city. The other day I got an email from my high school obsession/the boy I thought I’d want to marry from age 13-18 regarding a guy I used to work with at a newspaper in college. They’re friends. And they both are friendly (ironically) with the boy who filled that "I want to marry him" slot for the first half of my freshman year at the Brigham. This would be embarrassing to admit, but because we all know one another’s business anyway, it really doesn’t matter. I’m sure they all traded stories long ago.... The only saving grace is that we’re all inherently selfish and think mostly of ourselves, so perhaps I haven’t come up. Yeah, fat chance. But I’m ok with it.
Of course, that doesn’t seem so creepy, right? Well how about this? I randomly called my second cousin (who lives 600 miles away) last night to run a little background check on a man I’m supposed to have dinner with at some point in the near future. I wasn’t sure my cousin knew the guy, but I figured he could dig up some dirt if needed. Well, I got a slightly different report-- on the boy I’ve been seeing frequently who’s on his way out. All I’m saying is, it’s a small world and people talk.
So here’s what I’m thinking... I’m pretty sure I’ll never be the type of person to keep everything bottled up. It’s just not in my nature to be uber-discreet. But I’ve recently discovered the enjoyment (and power) that comes from not laying all your cards on the table at once. Oh, I know I’ll spill the beans eventually, but maybe I’ll try the mysterious track for a bit.