Another day, another life lesson from Geri Halliwell.
During the last performance on the Spice Girls reunion tour, she announced, “It suddenly occurred to me this afternoon, I need to say something I should have said a long time ago: I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left. I was just being a brat.”
For those of you so traumatised that you have blocked it out completely, she’s referring to the Black Sunday in 1998 when she broke the nation’s – nay, the world’s – hearts by leaving the group. Here, 21 years later, was the apology we had all been waiting for ever since.
As well as righting history’s most heinous wrong, Geri’s mea culpa teaches us that the statute of limitations on saying sorry is much longer than assumed.
There are a few people in my past that I owe apologies to, so if it’s good enough for Geri...
My Science Teacher in Secondary School
Double Science on a Monday afternoon sounds like a punishment, but when I was at school it was honestly just part of the timetable.
Obviously there’s only so much anyone can take, so one week I bunked off. When the teacher asked where I’d been the next day, I looked at the floor and mumbled, “I had to go to the doctor... about something my mum doesn’t know about.”
I’d been advised by more experienced bunkers this was the get out of school free card, and that no teacher would push a teenage girl any further. They hadn’t reckoned on my teacher though.
“I’ll need a note from your mum tomorrow or I’m calling her,” she said, with a triumphant look in her eye. It was like a game of chess, and she’d just checkmated me (I don’t play chess, but you know what I mean).
She had massively underestimated how much pride I had though. Because – ha ha, sucks to be her – I had literally zero. I told my mum I’d wet the bed – age 16 –and had been so worried about it that I’d made a secret doctors appointment, sadly necessitating me missing an afternoon of school.
When I dropped the note my mum wrote me on the teacher’s desk, it was a total moment of double checkmate, or whatever. It felt amazing. Not so much now. Sorry, Miss. Oh, and mum, I s’pose. Oopsie.
My old flatmate
This was back in Medieval Times, when there were no mobiles. I answered a call from her boyfriend and took a message. It was only when I overheard them having a furious row about him not ringing when he promised to that I remembered I’d forgotten to pass the message on.
That didn’t seem like the time to mention it. They split up. He later became a billionaire. She died alone, childless, having never married.
Kidding. She’s got a husband and kids, and is probably as happy with her life as anyone... but I always wonder, was that her sliding doors moment? Eek.
My childhood friend
I was one year older and wiser, so I told her something about a festive figure that is a secret.
Yes, she would have found out eventually (almost definitely) but I still feel like I murdered her innocence – and, more importantly, was directly responsible for her getting fewer presents.
Geri Halliwell
Because I know your name is Geri Horner now but I will never call you that. You
are forever Geri Halliwell. Soz.
