[It was an honest mistake]
The other day while showering I was struck with serious guilt over how I had treated this girl I went to high school with. I had shared several laughs at her expense, all behind her back and all in good fun, but it occurred to me that the "good fun" we had was pretty mean in nature, even if it still sort of cracks me up.

This is sort of the overarching theme of my adolescence and my life: Me being a passive-aggressive jerk and feeling guilty about it, but not guilty enough to stop being a passive-aggressive jerk. I struggle with this problem to this day. Part of it I blame on my dark sense of humor, which lets me get away with saying mean things in the name of funny. In high school, I harbored a boiling well of resentment and rage that had no source other than those silly teenage girl hormones. My friends and I would distribute our disdain among almost everyone around us. We were by no means the popular girls at the top of the social caste; we hovered somewhere in the middle, able to communicate when needed with members of most social groups but still reserving the right to dismiss with a sneer everyone from the skanky white trash girls to the preppy cheerleaders. After all, we were band geeks, and had no doubt that a good number of people around us were doing the same thing to us. That's what high school is all about.

To be fair, most of our disdain for those around us was relegated to the pages of letters we wrote back and forth, as well as the cartoon that Tamara and I collaborated on. We didn't actively pick on or bully people. But nothing and no one was sacred in that cartoon; everyone who annoyed us was lampooned to a ridiculous degree. It was great fun and made us feel powerful, in a fictitious sort of way.

I'm ashamed of how horrible and sullen and typical we were, and I'm afraid that life is going to turn into an endless cycle of looking back and being embarrassed at my behavior and remorseful for those I may have inadvertantly or otherwise hurt.