I’ve had a few. Most that remain are mistakes made by my younger self. I’m grateful for mindfulness because it helps me live with fewer regrets, and also be grateful for what I learn from those I still have, new or old.

I regret that I wasn’t a kinder person in high school. I fell down a rabbit hole inadvertently when I posted the latest version of ‘Fruits of the Practice’ on Facebook this evening. In two short clicks I was reading a fifteen-page list of deceased graduates of Annandale High School. It’s disconcerting (though it shouldn’t be) to see that the two football stars of my years there are both dead, and a girl I barely knew died the year after graduation. I remember her vividly, though I didn’t know her well. She had a frail, dramatic look, and I wondered if I was kind to her back then, or if I just ignored her as I did so many.

I don’t blame myself: I was who I was because of the conditions of my upbringing, which were less than ideal for instilling selfless behavior. I was a spoiled white girl, but it took me a few decades to realize and begin to rectify that. Also, though, I was myself made fun of often during grades one through ten, ostracized by the cooler cliques, never felt secure or that I belonged, (except in the newsroom which I ruled senior year). So I forgive myself for my missteps back then, when I didn’t know better. I just wish I had been kinder in my early years, especially to people who I realize now were just like me…