I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma. All the kids I knew were Okies, just like me. I didn’t have a mean bone in my body, but like many an awkward lad, wanted desperately to fit in.

When I was 16, a few guys and girls were standing together, waiting for the bell to ring for first period. Hoping to impress the girls and appear cooler than I was, I told a joke about Jews.

I didn’t know anything about Jews or the Jewish religion. As far as I knew, there weren’t any Jewish families in our town. Everyone was Baptist, Methodist, or Catholic.

Also, in those days, racial and ethnic jokes abounded, and the butt of a joke was interchangeable. Anyone – a Pole, a hillbilly, an Italian, an Oriental, a blond, or even an Okie – was fair game.

So I told a joke about Jews, and everyone laughed. Except one girl.

“That’s not funny,” she said.

Caught up in the humor of the moment, I said, “Why? What are you, some kind of Jew?”

It was meant as a clever remark, but fell horribly flat when she answered, “Yes.”

I was a young, small-town Okie who made a stupid blunder. And I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. And I should just let it go, but remembering that moment still stabs me in the heart.

There are other cringe-worthy things I did in my younger days. Like the time I reached out with a finger to touch an intricate, blown-glass sculpture, the prize possession of a friend’s mother, and the thing toppled over and shattered.

Or the time I stole a kid’s rock-hounding hammer at summer camp.

Which begs the question, why do we feel guilty about things we did when young?

The Internet is full of advice about how to deal with childhood guilt. One site said to write down the thing you did on a piece of paper, read it, then burn it.

Okay. Maybe I could also sing a few choruses of “Let It Go” from Frozen.

An engineer named Madison Kent said, “Mistakes are not meant to define who you are, rather they can refine you if you choose to learn from them.”

Super. But that doesn’t answer my question. Why do we feel guilty about things we did when young?

Maybe it boils down to this: When we remember our past, we remember it in the present tense.

The actions of our younger selves don’t seem like the actions of some distant person who now knows better, they feel like our actions. It’s not a matter of once upon a time we were that person who did that thing. In our minds, we are the person doing it. We are doing it even though we now know better.

I don’t see myself telling a terrible joke, I hear myself telling it. And I see the look on that girl’s face.

It’s not healthy to be overwhelmed by past deeds, but perhaps it’s good that they occasionally poke us in the heart.