Brick and Mortar

I don't carry guilt much. I tend to own up to a misdeed or a mistake, apologize (when it's called for) and move on, keeping the memory as a guard against a repeated screw-up but releasing the potentially paralyzing burden of "feeling bad."

But the other day, after what can only be described as a surreal encounter with someone who I believe encapsulates all of the worst trends in modern parental thinking (and whose type I see more and more in my professional and personal life), I found myself sitting in my favorite reading chair, not reading. I was thinking and my thinking was grim and this grim thinking lead to a real and a deep feeling of guilt -- a throat-squeezing guilt; a teary-eyed kind of guilt.

The guilt I felt was not over a mistake I can correct. This guilt is one I will simply have to carry until I die. It is guilt over a deed for which I can't really repent. And, God forgive me, no matter how guilty I feel for it, I would never want to change it.