Under Grumpa's Hat

We’re all experts in one thing: looking back and judging our past selves like a cranky movie critic who’s seen too much. We replay the choices we made, the words we said, the ones we didn’t, and those fork in the road moments where we went left instead of right. And somewhere in that rerun, we start to believe we should have known better. But here’s the truth we keep forgetting: “better” only exists in hindsight.

The person you were back then didn’t have today’s map. You learned by bumping into things, getting bruised, and sometimes breaking what couldn’t be fixed. You acted with the knowledge, courage, fear, or confusion you had in that moment. That version of you was just trying to survive. And survival, in all its messy imperfection, deserves forgiveness, not a life sentence of regret.

We tend to think forgiving ourselves means excusing our mistakes. It doesn’t. It means acknowledging that mistakes were the tuition we paid for wisdom. The heartbreaks, the anger, the rash words, the chances not taken, all of them were classrooms we didn’t know we had enrolled in. You can’t keep growing if you’re still punishing the student for the lesson they’ve already learned.

Think of the soil after a storm. It’s muddy, scarred, maybe littered with branches. But give it time and sunlight, and something new pushes through. Forgiveness works the same way. You have to let yourself sit in the mess for a bit, accept it, and then let the new growth begin. There’s no shortcut. You can’t hate yourself into healing.

Maybe you’re carrying guilt for staying too long, or for leaving too soon. For not speaking up, or for speaking when silence would have been wiser. For hurting someone who didn’t deserve it, or for letting someone hurt you longer than they should have. We all have our own collection of “if onlys.” But those ghosts can only haunt you if you keep the door open. Close it gently. Tell them thank you for the lesson, and then move on.

Forgiving yourself isn’t about forgetting what happened. It’s about remembering without self-loathing. It’s about looking in the mirror and saying, “Yes, I stumbled, but I’m still here.” Every scar is proof you didn’t quit. Every regret is proof you cared enough to wish you’d done better. And that means there’s still a good heart beating behind it all.

When you finally forgive yourself, you’ll notice something miraculous. Life starts flowing forward again. The past loosens its grip. You stop walking with your head turned backward. Because the only way to grow into who you’re meant to be is to make peace with who you once were.

So go easy on that person in the mirror. They got you this far. The least you can do is thank them before you step into the light of who you’re becoming.