Zawsze Cos Dla Siebie

Moja Babcia mi powiedzała żebym zawsze miałam coś dla siebie, jakiś sekret. For those who do not know Polish, this statement is a mystery in itself.

My grandmother (“moja Babcia”) has a quaint, colonial house at the end of an industrialized street in Warsaw; I sat in her antique filled room, waiting for her to return from the kitchen. Looking around the room, I saw postcards that her father sent her during World War Two scattered across her desk, pictures of me and my sister framed on her wall and my mother’s old toys on her book shelf. She always conveyed a sense of family and community. So when she told me (“mi powiedzała”) that she has had a secret for forty years, I was shocked. My mind began to wander; at that moment, nothing seemed “cooler” than a forty year old secret. As calmly as possible, so as not discourage my grandmother from telling me, the word “Co?” slipped from my lips. But it was not that easy. She did not want to reveal the secret to me without telling me first why she had hid it for so long. The pause seemed to last forever; then, she began explaining what kind of society we live in today how people are encouraged to share every moment with their life with someone else. If they did not, then someone would think they were hiding something. As my grandmother assumed, I agreed with this statement. Without telling me her secret just yet, she told me the most valuable piece of advice I have ever heard: to always have something for myself, some kind of secret. ("żebym zawsze miałam coś dla siebie, jakiś sekret")

However, she warned me that the secret that I should hold onto is not one that would ruin a family or could cause irreperable damage, but one that is small and personal. I asked her why she believed having a secret was necessary in life. And she simply told me that in this world we share too much knowledge and information. She noted that in her marriage, she and my grandfather used to share every morsel of their lives with one another because they assumed that such a personal connection was necessary for the survival of their marriage. However, they were both mistaken. My grandmother commented that she felt worthless that there was nothing that she had for herself that she could hold onto: the children they had—they shared, the house they had—they shared, the food they ate—they shared. If for some unfortunate reason that disappeared, she would be left with nothing.

So my grandmother began making up her own mysteries. She shared some of her forty year old secrets with me because she had more that she still had not told anyone. Every Thursday after work she would not take the bus home, instead she would take a walk through a nearby park. Although she showed up about an hour late from work every Thursday, nobody in the family ever questioned her. Certainly my mother was curious about what she was doing, but my grandmother would come home every Thursday refreshed and at ease, because she took that extra time in her day to do something for herself. Therefore, nobody thought she was hiding some scandalous information from the family. She also told me that she had a favorite chocolate bar, which she would always buy at a grocery store. However, she would eat the chocolate bar on the walk home so that nobody ever found out about the treat she bought. My grandfather admitted that he knew about the specific chocolate bar, but never confronted her or tried to buy that chocolate for her, because that was her own thing.

I cannot possibly imagine the vast amount of secrets my grandmother hides from the world, but I know that they are all for the better of her sanity. Since that conversation with her last summer, I have been searching for my own secret that no one else will know. Certain mysteries should not be solved.