A few years ago, social networking included various "tag" games, usually imploring us, or our alternate identities to list our favorite things – a sort of online playground mentality. Our responses were predictable as red, blue, and yellow. (Some lists accompanied by Julie Andrews singing, these are a few of my favorite things.) Occasionally, we revealed that our pets died, our parents were ill, or we loved watermelon for breakfast. What else were we to do on these global swing-sets and sliding boards?

I’m not sure why, but after repeatedly being "tagged," the effort at ignoring the tag became more difficult. Some of us, I thought, should be in sales. Eventually, I bought into the game; however, my response felt like the emotional equivalent of giving a stranger my social security number. And, once given, there was no taking back. (Recently, a St. Louis couple had their family photo mysteriously appear in a Prague grocery store advertisement.) There’s no point in trying to recapture ghosts once released. And once given, my impulse was to share more, and it seemed just the sort of favorite thing to share on Hubpages. Thus, the following:

I have been tagged; however, I feel more comfortable playing tag in a cornfield or pasture or while skinny-dipping at 10,000 feet. Or wading a clear stream watching crawdads dart from one hiding place to the next, blending in, amber colored, zipping along with their claws snipping at the past and heading into the future with their asses. Seems our world is full of crawdads. I am no exception. So, leading with my ass, here are six "personal" revelations. I am an openly private person.

1. During eight days of hiking and climbing in 1983, I slid into a double sleeping bag and felt the soft skin of my lover while the wind flapped the nylon tent and hail turned to jewels in the sunlight. We climbed the continental divide and were married in 1987. Looking back, I regret that I wasn’t more aware of my euphoria.
2. In 1989, my first son was cut from his mother while I watched the doctors, their tools make thin incisions, then gaping wounds severing the second and third layers, and eleven hours later, I held my son in my arms while he died. The odds were about one in 20,000 and, looking back, I say, that’s the way things go.
3. I love language and see it abused daily. I believe in language as a refuge, a sacred place where I might avert disaster by fictionalizing it. Disaster that isn’t real cannot hurt you. Can it? I’ve banged hard on manual typewriters, draft after draft, strapping myself in with a belt. Perhaps, in looking back, that accounts for my irritation at the carelessness of electronic words spewed and sent without consideration. But, we’re busy, so who has time to proofread, right? Just one letter can make a difference. For example, this headline in a religious newspaper, "The Joy of Pubic Worship."
4. I am non-sectarian. In grade school, Father Graham fondled my classmates. (He appeared in the newspaper recently.) Fortunately, I declined his invitation to give me driving lessons. In church, older women made passes at me. I confess – I necked in the confessional. The religious hospital director insisted on plugging my son into a "car battery" to give him every chance. As if she could. I prefer the study of religion, science, and philosophy, mathematics, physics, music, rather than belief in religion. While I sort of believe in "God," I have no use for Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Being kind and understanding makes good scientific sense. Looking back, I see the current religious fervor as holy cow fast food. Instead, let’s quit our job and find one more suitable to our spirits, or move to the mountains, or let’s take massive doses of antidepressants.
5. Like you, I enjoy approval. However, perhaps also like you, I enjoy mutual approval more. I seek moments of perfect mutual approval. Love? Looking back, I have been in love at least thrice. Not bad, but wouldn’t it be nice, to feel that perfection again? I could just die for another… whoops? Is death my next lover?
6. Having explored mountains from Alaska to South America and having three children, the first an "angel" bluebird, and the other two now teenagers, time is running out, and I want every moment to live fully. I wish for more good luck than bad. Looking back, I look to the future.