The Confessions

"I was a terrible older brother. Dismissive, unkind, always too busy. My brother idolised me and I treated his admiration like an inconvenience. He is one of the finest people I know and I spent his childhood making him feel small. I am trying to make up for it now but some things cannot be undone."

"I read my teenage daughters diary. I found nothing alarming but I violated her trust completely. She is twenty six now and we are close. I have never told her. I think about it whenever she tells me something in confidence."

"I let my younger sister take the blame for something I broke when we were children. My mother was furious with her for weeks. We are in our forties now and I have never told her. She would laugh about it I think. But somehow I cannot find the words."

"I have a half sibling I have never met. My father had a child before he met my mother. Everyone in the family knows except the child themselves who is now in their thirties. I have their name. I have never reached out. I do not know why."

"I have always been my parents favourite and my brother knows it. I never did anything to change that dynamic. I just quietly accepted the better treatment and told myself it was not my fault. He grew up feeling second. That was partly my fault."

"My father worked two jobs my entire childhood so I could have opportunities he never had. I took those opportunities completely for granted and never once thanked him properly. He died of a heart attack at sixty two. I never got to say what I should have said every single day."

"When my parents divorced I told my father things my mother had said in confidence. I was thirteen and angry. Those words contributed to a legal battle that hurt everyone. I never told either of them what I had done."

"I borrowed two hundred pounds from my mother when I was twenty three telling her it was for a deposit on a flat. I spent it on a holiday. She never asked for it back. She passed away four years later never knowing. I think about it every single time I see a photo of her."

"I told my family I could not make it home for Christmas one year because of work. I stayed home alone by choice. I just needed to not perform happiness for one year. Nobody knows that. They think I was miserable being away. I was the most peaceful I had been in years."

"I have not spoken to my father in four years over something that, looking at it honestly now, was mostly my pride refusing to bend. He is seventy eight. I know I am running out of time and I still cannot make myself pick up the phone."