Living In My Own Shadow

I've lived for fifty years in the shadow of my own life, hiding from the truth, guarding a secret that I was told, as a child, that I had to keep. I've come to the end and the secret that has cast a long shadow over my life has shortened leaving me no place to hide any longer. The weight of such a surreptitious event has me buckling at the knees and unable to live alone with it or, for many reasons, tell anyone.