Diarrhea of the mouth

I'm a talker. It's my own personal Mt. Everest. To hold my tongue. I think over my list of friends and find that all of them have a reputation for talking and I know that I do also. Occasionally this happens. I'm up in the middle of the night, mostly because of the coffee I drank this afternoon but also because of what I said while I was drinking it. Thank God it wasn't booze. Who knows what I would have said? I leave no stone unturned in these times of evacuation. Nothing is sacred. I only hope, each time, that the listener can be trusted. I'm afraid, based on what I know about myself, that if they're willing to hear me betray and abuse everyone I know and love, they're unlikely to keep faith. Do I? Have I? Will I? When people evacuate their hearts to me, do I keep quiet what they've said? My own husband knows I don't. Here's the sad truth: If there's a secret at his office that he's not allowed to tell, he may tell someone but it's not me. Maybe it's good that i know this about myself. I pray that it will never ruin any valuable relationship in my life. That is, perhaps, why I'm up at 2am writing about what I've done. I certainly can't confess to the victims. What would I say? "I told Bill that I think you're insecure and angry and I guess I do think that but I had no right to say it because you're my friend and I'm sorry." More than that, "I told Bill that you told me that someone told you that Mary..." I'm not trying to be vindictive when I do this. I really am not. But when the wrong ear is involved, it certainly has the potential to hurt everyone. Suppose I'm in a crowded theatre during these rounds of abuse and someone indirectly involved is around. Suppose the friend I'm trusting is unaware of the importance of the secret (taking her cue from my indelicate handling of the precious commodity). I don't want to be someone who can't be trusted, even by my husband. Do I do it for approval? Sometimes. Also, it makes me feel better when someone is bothering me. Sadly, someone is always bothering me. I'm very intolerant of all kinds of weakness and painfully proficient at calling it out. It's like the freaking devil. If I believed in the devil, this would be his manifestation. Biblically, I think I'm obligated to rip out my own tongue and I honestly think I would be a better person for it. It's something I give up at Lent, renounce every new year, write on scraps of paper and burn. And yet, thirty years into the journey, I still do it as badly as ever, with reckless abandon. No more restraint than when I was 14 on some days. Today I feel dirty. I feel angry at the listener, fearing that she'll tell, knowing that I'm only angry at myself. I want to pick up and move. To leave behind anyone who knows my secrets, and those of the people I care about, because of me. I want to start over and try again with a perfect life and nothing on my conscience but, of course, I can't.
I mean, of course I could but it would be ten minutes and a cup of coffee or, worse, beer, before I would need to leave again. I wait a little while when someone tells me something is a secret. Long enough that I think it doesn't matter...or until I forget they said it was a secret. Here's when you know you have a problem: Someone is a little cold toward me (maybe they've had a bad day, maybe they don't feel well, maybe the pitch of my voice is getting on their nerves) and I immediately try to remember if there's something I said about them to someone who might have told them. Ugh. Stop the ride, I want to get off. It's the worst punishment, perhaps, to be trapped in the life you've created for yourself. Actually, my life is pretty good. I'm not sure I deserve it. There's this book I'm reading, Jonathan Safran Foer...he writes about a book of truth or something from the Slacker side of a Jewish town before the war...I think that's the context, anyway. The entry regarding "Why unconditionally bad things happen to unconditionally good people" says, "They don't." Please may I keep my undeserved friends. I love them all so much for all my evil tongue betrays me. Please may today's indiscretions be lost in a karmic black hole and not come back to bite me. Can I earn the words back into my mouth with enough love and sacrifice? Would I be willing to do it if I could? Please.