I HOPE YOU LEARNED TO BE KIND...

MY GOODNESS how we’ve all grown. Well I hope you have, since when I knew you, you were extraordinarily immature, smallminded people.

Is that mean of me to say? Should I instead say ‘I’m writing this letter to say I forgive you. It’s fine, I’m over it’? Except I’m not.

Most days, I don’t think about you, but then my children will get in a fight and say horrible things to each other, or I’ll catch sight of my bottom and I’ll remember all the nasty things you said and did to me.

You used to call me ‘Nappy Bum’, do you remember? Because my PE shorts were a bit baggy around my bottom. Did you know I had body issues for years after that?

Or perhaps I could tell the charity where some of you work that you were not always so sweet and philanthropic.

I know I should move on, but it would be so satisfying to walk into one of the charity events you’re always posting on Facebook and give a speech listing all the things you did and said, making fun of my dyslexia or my squint, for instance.

That would not go over well in today’s cancel culture. But I wouldn’t be invited to one of your events, would I? A bit like the birthday parties the year we all turned 14. Or when you had sleepovers but only girls who had kissed a boy were invited. Apparently, that specifically meant not me.

Do you regret your behaviour and tell your own children to be kind? It’s what I always say to mine. It was you who taught me that, so I guess I should thank you.

Because being kind and finding kindness in return is why I have achieved so much happiness in my life — my life after you, that is.