Positive affirmations

All my life, in moments of quiet reflection, I’ve had a tendency to revisit various mistakes I’ve made over the years, and torture myself with regrets until I usually end up muttering a strangled “I hate myself” under my breath. That boy called ‘Shepherd’ in form 2, a name which was unfortunately combined with a head of bright red curly hair – why did we think it was OK to say “Baa baa!” when he went past? Vicki, my chubby best friend in form 3, why did I tell you my brothers called you ‘hippo’ behind your back, in some sort of perverse ‘honesty is the best policy’ moment of zeal, so that you ran off crying? And there are other, more recent events that are too numerous to mention. Strangely, I don’t self flagellate with any real and important mistakes, though. How bizarre is the (my) human psyche? I’m just lucky I never had to undergo any careful psychological scrutiny before being allowed to have kids. I’m sure the fact that one of my daughters has a tendency to let out a shrill and anguished cry of “everything is awful!” whenever the going gets tough is nothing to do with me.