Statute of Limitations
Feb. 21st, 2006 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrIt is odd: in the last several days I have been repeatedly invoking my seven year statute of limitations.
I should explain. As a conscientious person with a religious background (with more than a hint of codependency in my makeup) I have a highly attuned sense of guilt. I decided long ago that in order to keep myself from repeatedly flailing myself about mistakes in my past, I would allow myself to feel guilty for anything only for seven years. The reasoning is, you replace all the cells in your body every seven years (except perhaps some of the nervous systems cells? Not sure), and so you can be literally be said to be an entirely different person than you were seven years ago. This, I found, was a useful way to short-circuit guilt.
As I said, I have been noticing that I have had old stuff guilts really resurfacing in the last few days. I wonder why. I have caught myself kicking myself for something I have done or said ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, for god's sake. And I have had to keep stopping and telling myself--"Oh. Right. Statute of limitations. Drop it, Peg." And it's an effort to do so.
So . . . is it stress? All the life self-assessment stuff I have been doing lately? Or something else?
I should explain. As a conscientious person with a religious background (with more than a hint of codependency in my makeup) I have a highly attuned sense of guilt. I decided long ago that in order to keep myself from repeatedly flailing myself about mistakes in my past, I would allow myself to feel guilty for anything only for seven years. The reasoning is, you replace all the cells in your body every seven years (except perhaps some of the nervous systems cells? Not sure), and so you can be literally be said to be an entirely different person than you were seven years ago. This, I found, was a useful way to short-circuit guilt.
As I said, I have been noticing that I have had old stuff guilts really resurfacing in the last few days. I wonder why. I have caught myself kicking myself for something I have done or said ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, for god's sake. And I have had to keep stopping and telling myself--"Oh. Right. Statute of limitations. Drop it, Peg." And it's an effort to do so.
So . . . is it stress? All the life self-assessment stuff I have been doing lately? Or something else?
