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Hi, my name is Frank,

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and I collect secrets.

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It all started with a crazy idea

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in November of 2004.

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I printed up 3,000 self-addressed postcards,

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just like this.

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They were blank on one side,

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and on the other side

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I listed some simple instructions.

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I asked people to anonymously share an artful secret

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they'd never told anyone before.

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And I handed out these postcards randomly

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on the streets of Washington, D.C.,

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not knowing what to expect.

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But soon the idea began spreading virally.

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People began to buy their own postcards

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and make their own postcards.

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I started receiving secrets in my home mailbox,

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not just with postmarks from Washington, D.C.,

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but from Texas, California,

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Vancouver, New Zealand, Iraq.

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Soon my crazy idea didn't seem so crazy.

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PostSecret.com

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is the most visited advertisement-free blog in the world.

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And this is my postcard collection today.

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You can see my wife

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struggling to stack a brick of postcards

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on a pyramid of over a half-million secrets.

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What I'd like to do now

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is share with you a very special handful of secrets

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from that collection,

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starting with this one.

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"I found these stamps as a child,

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and I have been waiting all my life

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to have someone to send them to.

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I never did have someone."

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Secrets can take many forms.

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They can be shocking

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or silly or soulful.

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They can connect us to our deepest humanity

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or with people we'll never meet.

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(Laughter)

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Maybe one of you sent this one in.

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I don't know.

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This one does a great job of demonstrating

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the creativity that people have

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when they make and mail me a postcard.

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This one obviously was made out of half a Starbucks cup

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with a stamp and my home address written on the other side.

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"Dear Birthmother, I have great parents.

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I've found love. I'm happy."

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Secrets can remind us of the countless human dramas,

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of frailty and heroism,

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playing out silently

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in the lives of people all around us

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even now.

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"Everyone who knew me before 9/11

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believes I'm dead."

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"I used to work with a bunch of uptight religious people,

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so sometimes I didn't wear panties,

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and just had a big smile and chuckled to myself."

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(Laughter)

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This next one takes a little explanation before I share it with you.

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I love to speak on college campuses

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and share secrets and the stories with students.

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And sometimes afterwards I'll stick around

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and sign books and take photos with students.

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And this next postcard was made

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out of one of those photos.

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And I should also mention that, just like today,

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at that PostSecret event,

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I was using a wireless microphone.

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"Your mic wasn't off during sound check.

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We all heard you pee."

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(Laughter)

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This was really embarrassing when it happened,

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until I realized it could have been worse.

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Right. You know what I'm saying.

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(Laughter)

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"Inside this envelope

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is the ripped up remains

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of a suicide note I didn't use.

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I feel like the happiest person on Earth (now.)"

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"One of these men is the father of my son.

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He pays me a lot to keep it a secret."

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(Laughter)

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"That Saturday when you wondered where I was,

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well, I was getting your ring.

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It's in my pocket right now."

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I had this postcard posted on the PostSecret blog

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two years ago on Valentine's Day.

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It was the very bottom, the last secret in the long column.

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And it hadn't been up for more than a couple hours

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before I received this exuberant email

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from the guy who mailed me this postcard.

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And he said, "Frank, I've got to share with you

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this story that just played out in my life."

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He said, "My knees are still shaking."

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He said, "For three years, my girlfriend and I,

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we've made it this Sunday morning ritual

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to visit the PostSecret blog together

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and read the secrets out loud.

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I read some to her, she reads some to me."

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He says, "It's really brought us closer together

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through the years.

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And so when I discovered

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that you had posted

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my surprise proposal to my girlfriend at the very bottom,

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I was beside myself.

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And I tried to act calm, not to give anything away.

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And just like every Sunday,

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we started reading the secrets out loud to each other."

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He said, "But this time it seemed like it was taking her forever

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to get through each one."

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But she finally did.

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She got to that bottom secret, his proposal to her.

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And he said, "She read it once and then she read it again."

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And she turned to him and said,

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"Is that our cat?"

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(Laughter)

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And when she saw him,

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he was down on one knee, he had the ring out.

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He popped the question, she said yes. It was a very happy ending.

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So I emailed him back

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and I said, "Please share with me an image, something,

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that I can share with the whole PostSecret community

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and let everyone know your fairy tale ending."

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And he emailed me this picture.

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(Laughter)

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"I found your camera at Lollapalooza this summer.

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I finally got the pictures developed

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and I'd love to give them to you."

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This picture never got returned back

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to the people who lost it,

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but this secret has impacted many lives,

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starting with a student up in Canada

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named Matty.

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Matty was inspired by that secret

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to start his own website,

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a website called IFoundYourCamera.

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Matty invites people

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to mail him digital cameras that they've found,

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memory sticks that have been lost

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with orphan photos.

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And Matty takes the pictures off these cameras

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and posts them on his website every week.

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And people come to visit

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to see if they can identify a picture they've lost

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or help somebody else get the photos back to them

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that they might be desperately searching for.

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This one's my favorite.

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(Laughter)

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Matty has found this ingenious way

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to leverage the kindness of strangers.

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And it might seem like a simple idea, and it is,

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but the impact it can have on people's lives can be huge.

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Matty shared with me

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an emotional email he received

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from the mother in that picture.

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"That's me, my husband and son.

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The other pictures are of my very ill grandmother.

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Thank you for making your site.

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These pictures mean more to me than you know.

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My son's birth is on this camera.

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He turns four tomorrow."

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Every picture that you see there

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and thousands of others

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have been returned back to the person who lost it --

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sometimes crossing oceans,

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sometimes going through language barriers.

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This is the last postcard I have to share with you today.

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"When people I love

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leave voicemails on my phone

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I always save them in case they die tomorrow

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and I have no other way

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of hearing their voice ever again."

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When I posted this secret,

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dozens of people

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sent voicemail messages from their phones,

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sometimes ones they'd been keeping for years,

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messages from family or friends

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who had died.

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They said that by preserving those voices

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and sharing them,

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it helped them keep the spirit of their loved ones alive.

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One young girl

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posted the last message

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she ever heard from her grandmother.

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Secrets can take many forms.

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They can be shocking or silly

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or soulful.

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They can connect us with our deepest humanity

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or with people we'll never meet again.

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Voicemail recording: First saved voice message.

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Grandma: ♫ It's somebody's birthday today ♫

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♫ Somebody's birthday today ♫

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♫ The candles are lighted ♫

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♫ on somebody's cake ♫

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♫ And we're all invited ♫

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♫ for somebody's sake ♫

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You're 21 years old today.

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Have a real happy birthday, and I love you.

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I'll say bye for now.

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FW: Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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June Cohen: Frank, that was beautiful,

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so touching.

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Have you ever sent yourself a postcard?

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Have you ever sent in a secret to PostSecret?

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FW: I have one of my own secrets in every book.

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I think in some ways, the reason I started the project,

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even though I didn't know it at the time,

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was because I was struggling with my own secrets.

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And it was through crowd-sourcing,

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it was through the kindness that strangers were showing me,

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that I could uncover

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parts of my past that were haunting me.

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JC: And has anyone ever discovered

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which secret was yours in the book?

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Has anyone in your life been able to tell?

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FW: Sometimes I share that information, yeah.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)