While trying to exit a building and balancing on my crutches with a bandaged foot, a stranger carelessly bumped into me. He caught me off guard and my friend held on to me in order to avoid another mishap. The stranger and I both apologized simultaneously. My friend was annoyed at the interaction and asked me why I said sorry. ‘I don’t know’, I exclaimed. Why was I sorry?
It got me thinking. What exactly was I sorry about? That he bumped into me? Or that I was partially disabled at the time? Or was it that I was sorry because I made his life uneasy at that moment. All of the above reasons don’t in fact require an apology on my part.
I say sorry out of habit, because I feel it’s my fault when in fact I’m not at fault. I wasn’t being pitiful or remorseful or said it even out of despair. It’s funny how unconsciously we say and do things out of habit. We subject ourselves to mindless acts of some proportion everyday. Others notice and we ourselves have blindly become accustomed to them.
I know when to say please and thank you, just like everyone else, just like I had been taught by my parents. When we say these words, I was taught we should mean them, from deep inside. I was taught to say sorry to be apologetic for something I did wrong. ‘Sorry’ is for consoling and understanding and regretting that you made a mistake, accepting you were wrong. It’s supposed to be a meaningful gesture.
So what happened? I began to say sorry out of habit. I presume it’s because throughout my life, I’ve never received an apology for all the wrongs people did to me. When you have to move on from relationships in life without an apology you succumb to a guilt ridden affair of your own. Their egotistical behavior got in the way and I wasn’t worth an apology and so I moved on ashamed that the disheartening vulnerable state I was left in would allow for some closure of my own.
With time I learned that waiting around for someone to be apologetic was a waste of my time. You cannot expect solicitude from everyone. Not everyone is forgiving. I also figured out accepting an apology meant I was ok with the wrongs and deep down I wasn’t ok with the destruction. When too much time passes so does the level of trust diminish. An apology is accepting, understanding and validating feelings. It means you took responsibility for your actions. You understand you hurt someone and you regret it, most of all you mean it. So instead I made up for all the apologies I never received. It’s become so embedded in me that now I don’t think twice when it rolls over my tongue. I’m just sorry.
I say sorry when someone drops something, when someone has to walk past me and even when they bump into me. I’m sorry that I was in the way or they made a mistake because in some small, insane way I was a part of that interaction that required an apology. I’m sorry because even if they don’t apologize I did it for them. Could it also be that I am a compassionate person? I look above and beyond and instead of waiting for the apology, I set my ego aside and became a bigger person and I apologize instead. Because if I don’t get that apology, I have one for you to give to me, I have your apology right here, waiting.
My friend rolled her eyes at me, ‘You need to stop saying sorry for everything’ She blurted, ‘It wasn’t even your fault!’ So I’m mindful now, it’ll take a while for me to cease being sorry for something you did to me or maybe I’ll never let go of my ‘sorries’ because my little ego doesn’t get in the way of an apology, I’m sorry.