We're all sitting, waiting, wishing. Not just Jack Johnson.

A girl once told me we're all waiting for something. And at the time, I thought that was great. It felt like she had just handed over the secret to happiness or something equally significant. Why, though? It meant that I wasn't alone. That I wasn't the only one holding out or crossing my fingers or making the same birthday wish every time I blew out the candles.

Just recently, I thought back to that idea of waiting, hoping and wishing. Jack Johnson thinks its okay, so it must be, right?

Depends what you're sitting, waiting, wishing for.

Sure, it's okay to sit and wait and wish on a person. Anyone is entitled to that. I'm guilty of it, and I know a lot of other people who also are. What it's not okay to do is think that suddenly, someone is going to figure you out when you're not being who you say you are. You not only have to be true to yourself while you wait, but to the people around you. Whatever it is you're waiting for. A train, the end of a Friday afternoon, a call from someone you love.

"So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them." – The Perks of Being A Wallflower

If college has taught me anything at all, it's that I'm not a hundred percent true to myself most of the time. There are two sides to me, depending on who I'm with and where I am. And that's not fair to me, to anybody, because if (read: when) I decide I want to be who I think I am, and people who think they know me find out they don't, they're just going to tell me that's not Me. That I'm not like that. Whatever "that" is.

There's this big aspect of vulnerability that we skirt around because if we can be something else entirely, a person that others like for the wrong reasons, we don't have to worry about rejection. We all know what people are looking for, because we're looking for the same thing, so we take comfort in trying to be that Other Person when in reality, we're only going to hurt later down the road.

What I'm trying, really trying, to say, is that we shouldn't wait around for people to like us. If we're honest from Day One, we wouldn't have this problem.

Tell someone if they're important to you. If they're not being true to their heart. If they're making decisions just to please someone else. You only get one life in this world. Let it be your own.  

Happiness is playing hide-and-seek in your best friend's basement.

I am sitting crouched under the bar, and my eyes still aren't adjusted to the lack of light. Creepy Halloween music plays in the background, and I'm playing that game where you close your eyes, click your heels together, and pretend you're Dorothy.

"There's no place like home," I say, and my friend laughs from the other side of the bar where she's sitting in a gigantic bag designed to wrap awkward Christmas presents.

I wait to be found, sighing when I hear the high-pitched scream my friend makes when she's discovered. I know now that no matter what, I'm not IT.

Did I mention we're 20?

Or that being IT is still worse than anything on the planet? That we still play Nose Goes to avoid being chosen?

It doesn't matter how old we are, though, or how many years worth of stock we've put in playing hide-and-seek in the dark with the lights off. Because we're all allowed to be a kid. In fact, if we're smart, we'll turn to childhood a thousand times before our lives end.

The thing about kids that gets me is their contagious happiness.

I sell baby clothes. I've watched hundreds of kids walk into the store, see the Hopscotch painted on the floor, and get all giddy with excitement. They tug and tug at their parents' arms, pointing in case they didn't get the message.

"Watch me," they yell, running over and fighting over whose turn it is to go.

What I wish for them, and for everyone else in this world, is for that to be enough sometimes. There are so many bad moments, bad situations we find ourselves in, and yet kids are often blissfully unaware.

It's raining, so they splash in the puddles. The ice cream truck is rolling down the street, so they ask for a Rocket Pop. It doesn't matter that the blue and red juice is running down their arm, or that it's not the most nutritionally sound choice for a snack. There will be other moments to care about that. Now is not one of those times.

What if it never had to be one of those times? What if we could all be better at separating work from play, and in the process, feel less guilty about how we want to spend our free time?

As long as we're not hurting anyone else, if we want to go to the water park on a scorching Saturday afternoon, or the drive-thru at one a.m., that should be nobody's problem but our own.

We are never too old to learn from the kids in our lives.

We're All A Conglomeration of Our Own Secrets.

Taylor Swift's newest album, Speak Now, has the coolest concept ever.

"Each song is a different confession to a different person."

Sound familiar? Reminds me a little bit of those Myspace days, blogging about people in your life that were important in those Guess Who posts. Each person had a sentence dedicated to them, and people were free to comment.

"Am I number seven? What about three?"

It's times like this that I wish I wrote song lyrics. There are people I would like to talk to, to tell something, but like most of humanity, I keep it inside. And I have more than a few such secrets.

Why do we do that?

PostSecret's a great example of this. Perfect strangers find out that you resent your family, that you flitter between sexual orientations, that you're afraid of love, but your own friends are in the dark.

Maybe we're afraid that the people who know us most won't accept us if we're not the person they think we are. But we can't know that for sure. We can't.

If we're going to make some grand assumption, why not make it something to hope for? Probably, it'd be so much better to think that it can't go wrong. Because here's the kicker. Here's something I've learned from my family:

The people who love you, who truly care, won't turn their backs on you when you tell them.

For all you know, they already know. Or they're going through something just as bad. Or they've been there before, and they can help you. There's a reason there are so many people out there writing memoirs and personal essays and giving speeches. They've been there before, that indefinable Somewhere, and they want you to know that You're Not Alone.

We're all a conglomeration of our own secrets, our own confessions, so we better start owning up to them.