Apologies

Im sorry

Apologies. I’m guessing I haven’t offered enough of them in my lifetime.  Neither I’m sure, have I received some that might have been deserved, but that bit is beyond my control.  “Deserve’s got nothing to do with,”  or so I’ve heard Clint Eastwood say, and so I’ll leave that be for now.  Apologizing is the most potent acts of healing in the human relational inventory.  A heartfelt apology can repair seemingly permanent damage.  The act can even spark the rebuilding of ostensibly terminal relationships.  Apologizing is a two-way wonder drug.  So why is it that when it’s needed most this seemingly simple choice can appear so utterly unavailable to us?

Hello Ego!  The pride-o-meter sits pinned at eleven.  “Sorry?” I spit.  “Ha, I’m not sorry, I’m fucking pissed!”  Sound familiar?  “It’s they, not I who should be asking for forgiveness.”  Here I am once again, facing a barricade I’ve built obstructing the pathway to reconciliation and so created the need for the other person’s permission to move forward.  Waiting for an apology is just that, waiting.  Waiting in lieu of acting, of taking the chance, of creating an opportunity for resolution.  

Pride is a fickle mistress.  It can afford us the intense bravado needed to inflate our personal myth of invincibility, which in a fight or flight situation can be useful.  However, when the peak intensity of such an engagement subsides, we are left with the stance we took based on pride, not on love.  “Love,” where did that come from?  Hmmm, from the idea that if we truly want peace, we have to choose it.  Peace is my favorite, but clearly not a universal choice for ‘state of being.’  Have you ever apologized to someone only to find that the words had no effect on them?  Come to understand that your act of contrition bore no fruit in your effort to create healing?  Me too!  Some people thrive on conflict, and that is either a nature, nurture or both thing, over which we have no power other than a heartfelt, “ugh!”

Sometimes offering an apology is not a practical option.  In such downward spiraling relationships, we may find the right answer to be ‘cut and run.’  Sometimes we have to let things go.  The real challenge lies in determining, and owning the difference between circumstances beyond our control, i.e., dealing with an ‘unreasonable’ person, and situations in which we have been party to the wrongs that might well be righted by a diminishment of our own ego posturing.  Difficult yes, but not insurmountable.  It is painful to think about lost friendships or loves that might have been saved by an apology.  Could they still be?

These days I find myself apologizing rather frequently; though I’m sure I still miss some prime opportunities to take responsibility.  I say “I’m sorry” to my sons when I’ve wrapped up a solid performance of being less than the father I’d like to be.  I can see in their eyes that it lands, and moves them.  Perhaps, more importantly, it may someday help them with the task of owing their own spells of less than stellar behavior.  Hopefully, it will instill in them the notion that choosing to initiate the making of amends is not an act of weakness.  Rather, it is an act of strength, or so I believe, survivable and often enriching.

Heartfelt apologies spring from a bottomless well within us.  They are an infinitely renewable resource.  The courage to make the first move of reparations may be buried deep.  At times it may seem utterly impossible to grasp.  Even so, I believe it is always worth the reach.

 

Butterfly Girl

PAPILIO MACHAON

The wooden window frame creaks gently at the caress of the breeze.  Dew drops tremble on the laden blades of grass running from the mailbox to the front steps.  Sunglow shines at the edge of the world, kissing the brickwork of the sleepy cottage, built long ago for someone’s profit, filled this day mostly with love.  In the kitchen, the faintest click signals the release of water, soon to be steam, then to become the rich black elixir that she loves with just a dash of cream.

As always the alarm is set but unneeded.  Her long lashes flutter open to the glow of this new day.  Most mornings her first thoughts are steeped in gratitude…for all of it.  For her life, her child, her present moment, and still with some difficulty she embraces and acknowledges her gratitude for the past.  Every day has lead to this moment, the aroma of coffee, the faint light filling the skylights, the peace that once seemed a phantom now seems a life.

“Mom”

“Yes, my darling one.”

“Can I have some coffee?”  Her son Jonah asks.

“Certainly, but no sugar please.”

“Nevermind.”

“Joey, have you noticed what an amazing gift this morning is?”

“Yes mom, I said my gratitudes,” his words wander naturally down this well-worn path.

“Excellent! I love you!”

“Love you too.”

Three paintings hang on the wall, across the room from her king size bed.  The painting on the left is of an intricately patterned caterpillar making its way across a birch branch in what looks to be late Summer.  The next is of a delicate chrysalis suspended from a similar branch in the Fall.  The painting on the right is of a magnificent butterfly taking wing in the Spring.  So it goes that not every day has been this day, full of comfort, and love.  But today, a few before, and many after will be very much like this one.

Discomfort, I’ve heard tell, is the price of admission to a meaningful life.  Knowing the Butterfly Girl’s story, I believe that to be true.

#fiction

Have thoughts on the subject?  Please comment.  Life is bigger and better with shared experience!

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