I have spent too much of my life apologizing and an equal amount of time thinking that those two little words, "I'm sorry" would go a long way to acknowledge that some situation, little or big left a mark on my heart. I do not wait for the words because I am not one to hold out for expectations that are likely to disappoint me. But I do pay attention to others' actions because they speak much louder than words, and I am bound to accept them as an equivalent if they do not repeat, and therefore salt the wounds of a familiar situation.
Yet I believe that being able to say I'm sorry is an important life skill. It doesn't cost much and requires only a little bit of empathy. It is not an "admission of wrongdoing", but an acknowledgement of another's shared humanity. For example, "I'm sorry we had a misunderstanding that left you feeling like that" is very different from "I am wrong, and therefore feel sorry". It is also not the same as pity, which is "I feel sorry for you". That is an insult added to an injury already there. It surprises me that in some cases, a person resists those words at all costs because it feels like it is giving away some part of a person's soul. I have never felt like I am giving away a part of myself if I have apologized in all sincerity. Who wants to continue the effects of a hurt that is unnecessary?
In my more neurotic states of mind (where I feel like everything is my fault either because I am a little delusional about my own importance or because I was well trained to believe that I had probably done something wrong, even if I didn't know what it was), I have apologized too much. In this little bloggy journey I am taking, I am also making a commitment to be a little more discerning about when I say I'm sorry. It will be a good test for me because if I do apologize, I want it to come from a place of sincerity, and as well, because I think that my actions or words may have caused harm to another, whether intentionally or not.
Intentions have little to do with whether or not an apology is warranted. Being an optimist, I think that most folks have fairly good intentions toward others, but sometimes human priorities come into conflict with others. Yet because of that, there may be a need for an apology out of inattention, neglect, trivialization of another's feelings and/or an ignorance (in the sense of "not knowing") of the importance of something to another.
The cost to another of an inability to say I'm sorry is a distortion of the other person's perceptions--e.g. pretending what happened really did not, walking away from a situation leaving the other person standing thinking, "am I crazy?" or was that really cruel, insensitive, thoughtless? Or, it makes the other person alone responsible for how a relationship goes, despite the reality that it takes two people to create a difficult situation and both of their attention to resolve it. This is especially true in cases where one is not actively aggressive, but passively neglectful--"what? I didn't do anything". The issue really doesn't go away. It may shrink in importance in the larger scheme of things over time, but a lack of resolution or "closure" for both parties having worked through a conflict leaves a mark on hearts that could otherwise use the salve of two simple words to do a world of healing.
I don't believe it's ever too late to apologize, and it's only too early if the apology is not sincere. Some of the most important people in my life have never said they're sorry to me. I have come to accept it as "their way," but being the marshmallow hearted being I am, it is something that confuses me. It does not make me love them any less, but it does make me wonder if they know how much it would mean to me if they could.
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Ventures into virtual land
I admit I am a techno dinosaur. My laptop is slow and low on memory space. Maybe these first two lines parallel mid-life. Both of my daughters have recently married in the last two years. I am at odds with myself and contented at the same time. Is that possible? I began this blog in a technology boot camp that was our faculty retreat just days before the halls of our new building were filled with cute boots that college girls wear and the sounds of cellular equipment dinging, vibrating and rapping. Within the span of two years, I turned fifty, traveled to Africa, accepted a position as Associate Dean of a brand new School of Communication that had long roots in a small department I have been part of for eighteen years at an institution I love. I became a grandmother of a little girl, deployed thirty five students to mentor young girls, women and migrants from faraway places out of one of my classes, and traveled to two different states to stand in my role as proud mother of the bride. Alone. Their weddings were as perfect as my daughters are different. I cried unbridled tears at the ceremony where I felt like I was revisiting my former life with their father's family and loving them all, healing from an ancient divorce and regretting the unfinished business I have with the bride. The second ceremony signaled a "coming out" of shyness I had never seen in my younger daughter. I have not been successful in love, though I have loved and been loved; yet both of these beautiful young women, my daughters appear to have found their life's mates. I wish I could take credit for that, but I have no idea if any is mine and am grateful for their good judgement. My insides moved at the second wedding from fatigue, joy, a sense of completion, and overwhelming sentimentality at the simultaneous sight of watching my eldest nurse her baby, worry about a baby girl's fusses while cutting new teeth, and my youngest's embracing of her big, beautiful day that she had worked months to deploy with a budget spreadsheet, delegation of roles to aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents and her truest friends. I spent that day in two places very far away from each other--ecstasy and longing. I celebrated a beautiful couple's joy, likeness, practicality and sense of humor, watched my parents who are in their seventies dance for perhaps the first time in fifteen years. They came alive as if they had not suffered the loss of many dear friends over the past few years; they looked young and as I remember them loving each other in sweet and funny ways throughout my growing years.I felt the loss of my importance in each daughter's life as I watched my eldest fulfill her role as wife and mother, nursing her baby girl, feeling those early pangs of watching your daughter suffer, even if only from cutting new teeth. I felt like a woman cutting new teeth in suffrage and liberation at once. I was far away from my home in Chicago and close to the home of all that I knew as a child and young mother stranded between the whole of what I thought I might do with my life's future over five decades. I have failed miserably in some things and reached heights I never knew I was capable of. I finished a book manuscript over the summer that took me eleven years to write through the trials of tenure, raising teenage daughters and managing parts of my life that always seemed like bikes and ropes and water and steam that I tried to hold onto, but could never fully grasp.
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