Forgiveness.

All things given, and factoring in self-awareness and remorse, how much forgiveness are we allowed to exercise on ourselves? This morning: an idleness that is not connected to New Year's Day and its parade of self-same illusions. Have stumbled upon old email of 17-, 18-, and 19-year-old self and came upon pages upon pages of sobering correspondes, both personal and professional; sobering because have never realized until today full extent of one's (1) neediness, (2) dismissiveness, (3) pretentiousness, (4) sense of entitlement, (5) penchant for inappropriate smileys, and (6) horribly florid prose (some things never change).

I am a horrible person. I'm now inclined to think that all of the disappointments in my life - rejections, failures, the occasionally impossible luck - had been just and fair - deserved - not so much as punishment but as a pull on the reins to a different (not necessarily better) direction. Would wish to forgive younger self. Badly. Really badly. Would like to offer excuses: youth, a desire to fit in, a creeping suspicion that one was not special. But things had been said. Already. Apologies could console no one but oneself, and that, have long figured out, is meaningless comfort.