I am an ordinary person who has made many million mistakes…so far. My earliest memory of a mistake was collecting my pee in a mug only to pour it out after wondering about the yellow tinge of it. Gross? Yeah…but what can I say, I was a curious child.
I stole coins from my piggy bank. It was the love of ice cream that made me commit the “crime.” I would climb up sneakily to the loft, an “unreachable” place where my mom kept it. It was a small tin box with a slot on the lid (dad’s work, “Reuse” in the 80’s) When the thought of ice cream crept into my mind in the hot days of summer I climbed upon the door and would take as much as I needed.
No guilt!
I was punished a lot in school for not doing home work and for failing in almost all subjects. I wondered why the grown ups were so cruel. What they perceived as “me” was not “me” to me. I was clueless of their ways, but I had me!
Later years , it all continued… my mistakes. Still no guilt.
On one rainy night I found two baby bats on the steps to our terrace. I took them and fed them milk. There was no wikihow then. I took a wild guess and gave them drops of milk which they very happily licked. I was glad I found them. A little proud too as I rescued them while my sisters were scared to even look at them. After a few hours I left them in a flower pot on the terrace hoping their mom would pick them up from there. The bats that were flying by unusually close that night made me do it.
The next day when I went up I saw the babies dead. I had left them in the cold night. It was my mistake that they were dead. GUILT!
After killing the two baby bats, it was a two day old puppy that I stepped on in the dark. GUILT!
Then the three squirrel babies that recently died on my watch. GUILT!
Is it possible to love myself?
We change as we age. As we grow we become very hard on ourselves. The support we got from ourselves when we were kids become unavailable. We begin to see what the world sees of us. I was me but every mistake began to haunt me. And how can one live without making any mistakes?
Self love is vital to happiness…to survival.
Sometimes I need to be the girl I was when I stole the money for ice cream. I remembered how easy it was for me to forgive myself then.
She taught me to love “me” unconditionally.
I am the only one who can free myself from guilt and that is the most precious lesson growing up has taught me.
I stole coins from my piggy bank. It was the love of ice cream that made me commit the “crime.” I would climb up sneakily to the loft, an “unreachable” place where my mom kept it. It was a small tin box with a slot on the lid (dad’s work, “Reuse” in the 80’s) When the thought of ice cream crept into my mind in the hot days of summer I climbed upon the door and would take as much as I needed.
No guilt!
I was punished a lot in school for not doing home work and for failing in almost all subjects. I wondered why the grown ups were so cruel. What they perceived as “me” was not “me” to me. I was clueless of their ways, but I had me!
Later years , it all continued… my mistakes. Still no guilt.
On one rainy night I found two baby bats on the steps to our terrace. I took them and fed them milk. There was no wikihow then. I took a wild guess and gave them drops of milk which they very happily licked. I was glad I found them. A little proud too as I rescued them while my sisters were scared to even look at them. After a few hours I left them in a flower pot on the terrace hoping their mom would pick them up from there. The bats that were flying by unusually close that night made me do it.
The next day when I went up I saw the babies dead. I had left them in the cold night. It was my mistake that they were dead. GUILT!
After killing the two baby bats, it was a two day old puppy that I stepped on in the dark. GUILT!
Then the three squirrel babies that recently died on my watch. GUILT!
Is it possible to love myself?
We change as we age. As we grow we become very hard on ourselves. The support we got from ourselves when we were kids become unavailable. We begin to see what the world sees of us. I was me but every mistake began to haunt me. And how can one live without making any mistakes?
Self love is vital to happiness…to survival.
Sometimes I need to be the girl I was when I stole the money for ice cream. I remembered how easy it was for me to forgive myself then.
She taught me to love “me” unconditionally.
I am the only one who can free myself from guilt and that is the most precious lesson growing up has taught me.
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