How much guilt is enough?
This morning I feel as if I am drowning in it:
I am guilty for not being a better wife.
I am guilty for not being a better mother.
I am guilty for not being a better stepmother.
I am guilty for not being a better grandmother.
I am guilty for not being a better ______________.
In my crowded mind, I amass all the things I failed to do, all the expectations I didn’t meet.
The expectations are my own. I build huge empires of obligations that I should fulfill. I collect novel-size lists of things it would have been great if I’d have done, but that I failed to do.
How old do I have to get before I give myself permission to just live each day without the pain of guilt?
A good friend of mine always says, “You do the things you want to do.” She has no pity for those of us who say, “I wish I was doing more of this,” or “I wish I’d done more of that.”
And besides, “It’s too late.”
My silent meditation this morning was filled with guilt. I tried to simply be with the feeling of it, but that feeling made me want to throw up. My mind raced to fill in all the details of my various transgressions, my failings, my lack.
Guilty as charged.
Is guilt self-hatred or self-pity?
I don’t know the answer to that one, but I do know that guilt is crippling.
The expression “sick with guilt” is apt. It is a sickness that keeps us from being our best selves right now.
