family secrets

i met up with my cousin, Fath, today and we had a really good talk. we started sharing our family secrets and it shocked me to find out that you think you know someone so well but in actual fact you don't know them at all. I was caught by surprise by some of the information. it was so overwhelming but i was glad i could talk to her about certain issues and hopefully we'll be able to solve some of the problems.

that brings me to another point. secrets. something that has always been a dilemma to me. secrets are quite tricky to handle. you share a secret and it may cause some damage to those involved but keeping it, eats you from inside. so either way, the truth will always surface. so is it better to come clean or just let it go and let nature take its course?

and what happens if you find out that the family that you have trusted and confide to all this while is not what you thought they were? doesn't it just destroy the whole institution? it breaks the trust and everyone starts to be judgmental with each other....

thats the problem with conservative Asian families. everything is swept under the carpet and everyone behaves like everything is going fine and everything will continue to be good. its so delusional. isn't it going to hurt more when the truth eventually comes out? this is why i envy the western family institution. though some might find their values a tad bit hedonistic, i have no qualms that they are good values. i liek the idea of having a liberal family where everyone just speaks their mind and they know each other's problems and work together as a unit to try and resolve the matter. it's so unlike families here where everyone hides all their dirty laundry thinking that they don't want to burden others with their problems. but what they don't realise that by keeping others in the dark actually hurts others more adn it doesn't solve anything... sometimes i wish i couls just run away from all this now...

lyas