I can remember standing on a railway platform with a Catholic girl and a part-Jewish boy discussing the guilt that our families had left us with, they at least had humouress somewhat un-PC jokes about theirs. I don’t, didn’t then, still don’t. As a matter of fact the randomised guilt that I feel generally didn’t get believed in back then, it wasn’t as bad as it’s gotten then though. And yeah, I do blame my family for this little nugget of my self, it notably crystalises about holidays and work. When I have a job I can’t take holidays, I just can’t. I can pull sickies interestingly enough, because then I’m allowed to feel guilty as I am actually doing something wrong.
Holidays, it took me eight months in Japan before I actually brought myself to even ask for a holiday outside of holiday time. I put it down to being a teacher – the notion of taking a holiday in term time was hugely alien. I hate asking for time off, I feel that guilt building again. It’s not even like I have a particularly great work ethic to be honest, if I did I’d have a job by now, a real one that I could keep, but still that damn guilt is back as bad as it ever was when I was fifteen.
It might be my family who put it there, but it’s me who’s let it back in, so much easier to wallow in the negative feelings than do something about them after all.
