the past is past

I was walking along a beach in Portstewart and stood for a time watching the incoming waves, When I looked back, my footprints were being washed away with the tide.
So often we feel we have done something so wrong, said terrible things, reacted badly and those things haunt our present so much our futures are held ransom by the past "footprints" we made.
Well, we all have a future as well as a past and history can, like the incoming tide, erode our footprints. Sometimes that happens when words of forgiveness are offered which act like that incoming tide.
It doesn't mean we didn't hurt people or ourselves, it simply means we can allow those mistakes to remain in the past, so we can create a better future.