When you are young, it's laborious to identify it. It feels like some form of disturbance you can feel deep in the pit of your stomach. Though never quite painful, the writhing and vexation keeps you in a constant acknowledgment that something just isn't right. In your youth, this sensation seems foreign and indefinable. You pass it off as a simple stomach ache, call your mother to pick you up from school, and the likelihood is you wake up the following morning having forgotten about the displeasure of the day before. No second thought is given to the quiet little girl you made cry the day before when you stole her dignity and called her names no woman should ever be called.

Guilt is a funny thing. One moment, the thought of a particular act can spark no significant reaction in you, and then the next minute, when someone you commend looks you in the eye to express their disapproval and disappointment in you, you can literally feel yourself sink lower, as the intensely heavy weight of self-condemnation rests itself on your shoulders. Again your stomach turns, and you are reminded of when you were young, the teardrops as they poured down her innocent face.

It is rational that symptoms of being ill become present when faced with the deadly combination of shame and remorse, for you are sick. Sick with yourself. The most intriguing aspect of guilt is that the most uncomfortable, the most intolerable kind, is the guilt you place on yourself.

To the little girl that I made cry, I eternally apologize. Years have passed, and I assume you have long forgotten that wretched day. I can only hope you have been able to blank out that day, a white fog from your childhood, having little impact on you now, and your life was carried on to its fullest, the memory of me gone.

But I will never forget that day. I will never forget the look in your eyes. I will never forget the torment in your face. I will never forget it, because every time I feel that burden weighing down, and that internal churning begins, I will see you. And every time, I will sink a little lower to the ground.