tellthemday

PostSecret is the most amazing work of art I've ever seen. Mr. Warren posted four responses to this card-

"It's posted. Tell them quickly before you chicken out."

"Run, run, tell them now!"

"There should be a day, every year-- a new holiday: Tell Them Day. A day when we all, together, gather Braveness in our hands and Run to those we love silently, and Sing."

"Maybe there should be a day when we actually come out and tell someone we don't love them too. Maybe it could be the same day. I think that part would be even harder."

Brilliant. We already talk like pirates or wear green on particular days, and love is way more important. And I believe that we ALL have something inside us that we are too shy, afraid, or embarassed to say out loud.

Valentine's day is taken already, limited to "I love you", and it's burdened with the commercial chocolate/flowers/diamonds thing.

Maybe we could expand it to tell, not necessarily love or not love, but THE THING to the people we want to know it? It could be a secret, or something you just want to make explicit. "I love you" is the inspiration, and "I don't love you" is pretty important too. But it doesn't have to be love at all. You might want to tell about something good you did, or are doing, or that someone has helped you with his good deeds. You might have a work or home problem that you want to air, but haven't. Here is your inspiration, motive, or excuse to tell your roommate "I really wish you would empty out the dish washer before you put dirty plates in!"

The only rule is that it has to be something that you have never told this person before.

I wish this would take off like talk like a pirate day has. I'll do what the pirate day people have to promote your responses- I'll post your pictures, stories, and suggestions. Tell Them Parties? Tell Them Day call in radio programs? Have at it. Post them as comments, or send them to my email,

tellthemday@yahoo.com

And even though there is a special day, you don't have to wait for it.
RUN, RUN, TELL THEM NOW!!

But if you need a special day, it's JANUARY 20 - TELL THEM DAY.

So run with it, tell your friends about tellthemday . If you link to this page, I'll link back to you to help get the word out.

TellThemDay plans...

a former friend said...

I've got a plan to salvage a friendship. I guess I'll write her on the internet. I'm realy scared she'll just laugh and call me pathetic. I don't think she cares about me anymore and I know she said I never mattered but I know that isn't true. I jus need to know for sure if she misses me too.

Tellthemday said: If you don't try, you'll spend the rest of your life wondering, won't you? After all, you already think she thinks you're pathetic, what do you have to lose? If she does, you can get on with it. If she still wants to be friends, you have saved a great and precious thing. I miss the friends I've lost and don't think any of them are pathetic- thugh they might think it of me. I wish I had your courage.

Let us know how it turns out, if you like.

This is where I'll post the plans you have for telling them. Making a plan makes doing anything easier, and writing it down even more so. Plus, you might inspire someone else!

This is IT !!! The first tellthemday !!!

I hope you all feel like I do, like a pioneer starting out into a wilderness. Several wildernesses actually- the wilderness inside ourselves that holds our secrets, the wilderness that keeps them held, and the wilderness in others that we'll explore when we tell.

Caitlin is right-We all can! !!!


(I already did mine, a day early- check the stories post below.)

Less than 24 hours before we get to launch! (Unless you're in New Zealand or someplace where it's tellthemday already.)That's what it feels like to me, that we are all on boats we've built and will launch together. Not the best metaphor, since we've never seen each other and don't know our separate destinations- but it will have to do for now.

So get those final details ready. Lay out those outfits. Write those memos. Make those reservations. Buy those sappy cards, inscribe those notes. Write those numbers and emails down and put them by the phone. Write those outlines, too- if the words are on paper, it will be easier to say them. PRACTICE, do some role playing. Yes, let someone you trust be part of it, let them cheer you on.

"All, together, gather Braveness in our hands and Run to those we love silently, and Sing."

We are ALL cheering each other on. go, go, GO !!!

Caitlin cheered... You can do it Haleyalexi!
We all can!
Tomorrow is going to be a great day!
<3
GOOD LUCK!

TellThemDay plans...

This is where I'll post the plans you have for telling them. Making a plan makes doing anything easier, and writing it down even more so. Plus, you might inspire someone else!


I am so excited by all this, so many plans! So much truth coming out! Please let us know how your plans turned out by posting comments here, or sending your stories to: tellthemday@yahoo.com

Anonymous said... January 20th is my birthday. I'll tell him. He knows the day, he so needs to hear...

haleyAlexi said...UAGHHH.2 days.but... but... but why a saturday?he lives too far away and i dont know him email or phone number.
i'll try.
wait.
caitlin.
i'll tell him.
PINKYSWEAR=] "There is no try, only do or not do..."

tellthemday said... I'm too smashed inside from guilt for a great big tell. But I have a small one, which is that I'm really proud of a co worker. He drank a lot, never told anyone but he did. Then about a month ago he quit- again, never told anyone but you could see the difference. I'm going to tell him that.

Anonymous said... I had a plan, but I just got ditched- so I have a new plan! I'm going to tell 15 girls that I want to go out with them. 15 strangers, I've never asked a stranger for a date ever. What's the worst that could happen? I figure I will build up a tolerance to rejection at worst, and maybe get some yesses. So what I'm really going to tell myself, by asking, is that I'm willing to take a chance and I'm not all beat down. And not one of them will say that she doesn't want to ruin our friendship.

Anonymous said...i'll tryyy. my friends magic 8 ball said he likes me.
and who knows better than a magic 8 ball right?
ill try.
PROMISE

Caitlin said... It's getting so close!
Actually, though I never meant to, this week I told his best friend what an asshole he is. Maybe I'll be able to tell HIM now. (not that he's an asshole, because he's not, at all. You know what I mean.)
Haley Alexi, you should tell your him too!


Aisling. said... Arghh. 3 days. Instead of telling him I think I might just encourage everyone else to tell someone something. Maybe at least then I'll feel like I've accomplished something.


Flex said... this ought to be a sign. i JUST discovered this and i have made plans for the 20th with my ex, my best friend, and someone i honestly dont like all too well but they think i do like them...

Anonymous said... I am really shy, but I am going to tell my boss's boss about an idea I have for work. I already made the appointment.

kitty said... my best friend has made plans for us to go away the weekend of the 20th, so I won't be telling anyone anything in person, but maybe I'll still call.
ps, I linked you. :) And I linked you back!

Anonymous said... i doubt i'll end up telling him, because im so afraid of being hurt... but i might tell his bst friend he's an asshole. :]because homestly, someone needs to give that boy an attitude check. :]

Laura. said... Awesome idea. Strangely enough, I was just thinking about telling the guy I really like how I feel about him just yesterday. I'll be taking full advantage of the 'excuse' this day gives me (sad as it sounds, yes, I do need something/someone to push me to do it) to tell him how I actually feel. Thanks.

Trisha said... i love it! maybe i'll even have the courage to follow through with it. but for now i'll at least link to this page.

Anonymous said.. i don't have the courage to tell him, that I don't love him and tell him who I do love, because it would hurt him so much, and he would probably stop talking to me and stop being my friend.. we've known each other for 5 years, and dated for awhile and he still loves me (more than a friend). I want to so badly tell him that I love Doug.. i ache, wanting to tell him... but i just can't. I can tell Doug I love him.. But I want to tell the entire world, and stop keeping it a secret.

Anonymous said... This is a wonderful idea. I hope I can find the courage to follow through and just tell him the truth

Maya said...Jan. 20? That's so soon! I don't know if I can do it.But it's a week before my birthday. If it works out, it would be fantastic. (Though I doubt it will.) Maybe I'll tell him then. And I will link to this.

Brittany said...Well, I'm GOING to tell him, maybe even sooner than the twentieth, thanks to you all. And, maybe, if all goes well, I'll post about what happened on here?

TellThemDay Stories... This is where we tell the stories about our tells, good and bad...

Hi,

I sent Postsecret a card months ago with a photo of my friend in Afghanistan and the words 'I'm so afraid he won't come back and he'll never know I loved him'. It never appeared on the site. After a while I started to think that maybe it was never put on the site because it just wasn't that big a deal, after all - I could change the situation. So I told him just how much I cared. This isn't one of those happily ever after stories where he told me he loved me too but our friendship is stronger than ever and from the day that I told him, I stopped having nightmares of his funeral. He came home safely today.

-UK


Caitlin said...

Wow.
I did it.
I did it.
and it.. went GREAT.
When I told him, he kissed me. He didn't say it back, but I think he meant it.
I hope I'm right, and I hope it goes as well for you guys as it did for me!
<3 style="font-weight: bold;">I don't see lack of initiative, you found out new information and changed your mind. Sometimes getting ready IS the initiative. And see the post below-

Anonymous said...

hayleyalexi- I'm a man, so I know. Here are 2 great truths about us.We are like subway trains, another one will be along. And, like sour milk, we do NOT get better on the second try.

Maybe if you didn't tell him, you shouldn't have.

Caitlin said... It's alright Haleyalexi. What Tellthemday and anonymous said was true, you probably made the right choice. You'll find someone you really SHOULD tell someday, and when you do, you'll be glad. Don't worry, it'll be alright. =)

HaleyAlexi said...
thanks anonymous.

tellthemday said... I cheated and went a day early, because it was a work tell and tellthemday is a saturday. I have a co worker, very nice, who uses orange scented hand wipes. This sounds petty, but something similar happened before, the old one used that foul purell. So I told, and she said she'd change to lemon! As I said this sounds petty, but I have a very hard time asking for what I want directly. I abandon rather than ask in relationships, so this is more of a step than it seems. Next time I'll ask for something I want, rather than ask for something to stop. And I told the sobered up co worker, who said he thought no one had noticed either his drinking or his sobriety.





All right, since there hasn't yet been a TellThemDay, these are stories and comments people sent in about taking the risk of telling a secret they had held on to.

Anonymous said... O wow. my tellthemday plan just got run over by reality. i have this huge torch for her, and today she asked me about my feelings, and i just let go and did it! i was all crying in my pizza! i don't know what will happen, but she didn't laugh.

ur right about making a plan. if i hadn't been planning to tell i might not have taken the chance and just shut up.

Anonymous said... After 9 months I finally forced myself to tell my roommate that her pot smoking was wrecking her life. I reckoned that even if she kept on with it, it wasn't because I had stood by and let her. She hated me and yelled at me and ran away from me and finally heard me. She got help and 6 mos. later she and the apartment are still clean. I'm glad I did it.

Isaac said... It took me a year to tell my colleague that his gum chewing was driving me crazy. He said "Sorry, I didn't know" and stopped. Tell them!

Anonymous said... I finally told my crush about my feelings. He didn't share them, and I was broken hearted. But not forever, I'm doing other things with my time then wasting it secretly mooning over someone else.

Finally, some responses thanks to thewhitehatpeople - check the side bar for a new linking category.

If you want me to link to you, be sure and include your url please! And do it after you've linked, because sometimes spammers just want links posted.

I'm inspired to respond to commenters and their stories, but I don't know if you want me to. One of postsecret's infuriating charms is its almost constant letting the speakers speak without trying to create a conversation which might intrude.

So I won't comment directly, much as I'd like to, except for a couple of general ones. If you want dialogue, I invite emails to tellthemday at yahoo.com. If readers care to comment, have at it. That way planners and tellers can get responses if they like.

Putting yourself out there, as they say, is about the act, not about the reaction. Bravery is a personal character trait not dependent on what other people do about your courage. Take your shot, for yourself. That's who owns your life, isn't it?

It's NOT weak or sad to have difficulty with telling people things. It's a sign of decency and respect. Nor is it sad to need a little help, that's the idea here.

Second, several people who are thinking of telling tough secrets are caught on the hurt it will cause. I've been on both sides of that conversation. For what my experience is worth, being deceived hurt way more and lots longer than being rejected.