CAN WE TALK ABOUT SORRY? - (SS DA)

First, a "don't pull the trigger" warning!

Please be advised the following subjects are included: Abusive behavior - Mental distress - Drug & alcohol abuse - Victium blaming - Suicide.

I am so confused by those people. What is it about a word and the society around us that means that some small words are harder to say than "antidisestablishmentarianism"? We are a species that splashes the words ‘I love you’ all over everything we encounter, ‘love bombing’ the universe around us into submission. We refer to that new purse we ‘love’, or a stranger we know nothing about and met three days ago, as being in 'love'. We are devaluing the phrase, like the pound after Liz Trust. Worse still, are those people who fear even the notion of muttering the words to someone who has been by their side for thirty years and cried with them in the darkest of times. In the world we live in, I ask, why can’t we say "sorry"?

Why can't we admit our mistakes?

Why can't we take responsibility?

What are we scared of? Why don’t we care enough to help the people we hurt?

An apology is necessary in allowing the other person to move on.

"Sorry seems to be the hardest word" has been a phrase that has passed around us for many years now, and we still aren't capable of changing that. I can't claim to be an expert on the subject, but I can say I’ve tried to accept my obligations to other people's healing. I have faced various situations now where perhaps karma has served a large portion of what I’d served up years before. It’s a dinner I don’t care to repeat; I don’t mind telling you.

My first note on the subject is this. Maybe it is time to go apologize to your previous dinner guest, who had to swallow what you served while you watched, knowing it wasn’t right but thinking they deserved it. They didn't; you knew that then, and you know even better now that you’ve since tasted yourself and what you once served up. 

In a dark place in my life, when I was unable to find ways to go forward, I took an overdose. I didn’t know it, and subconsciously I didn’t plan it, but in hindsight I wanted the pain to stop, and I found ways for that to happen without acknowledging it in my life. I died.

When I woke up, having no clue who I was, where I was, or what had happened, and just before they were about to ‘jump start’ my heart, I was terrified. The most frightening experience of my life. When I began to remember my life sometime later and how I got to that point, I didn't focus on the person who had made me feel this way or the troubles I was experiencing that made me feel that there was no other way.

I focused immediately on making things right.

Two people came to my side that day, my current partner and my ex-partner, my now best friend.

I had loved my ex-partner so much, and he was me, but things just drifted as they tend to do. As adults, we respected each other enough and wanted to be in each other's lives so much that we never argued over it, never fell apart, and if anything, we grew stronger in our trust and love for each other that we grew into the most precious support network any human can wish for. To this day, we love each other with all that we are. It is rare, and I am blessed. But I had balance to address, a bill to be paid, a soul to cleanse. I had to accept I had caused great hurt.

I had been lost in the early days; I had found myself later after much trouble, but I had. Admitting to myself that I had hurt someone who loved me so deeply was a bitter pill to swallow. But I know I did it; he knows I did it, so why can’t we talk about it? We have.

When I woke up after death, the only thing on my mind, the only thing I could say, the only thing fighting to get out of my mouth and off my soul, was what I had done to another person. The damage I had caused.

As soon as I had a second alone with him, I was honest. I said sorry. I said it twenty times with tears in my eyes, with absolutely the right intentions, and with no fear whatsoever, and it was the first time in twenty years I felt free of it. It worked for both of us because of two things.

I meant it. I was truly sorry for what he must have felt—the lies I told—that he thought I must have considered him stupid. I never gave reasons or excuses as to why I did the things I did; I never diminished it or tried to share blame. I wasn’t saying it to help myself; it wasn’t to pass the issue on to his shoulders; it was to give it away to the past for him.

It also worked because he accepted it with love and respect for my humanity. It meant he could trust that I was not careless, that I did love him, and that it was not about him, his flaws, or him not being good enough. It was about me, because I was telling him why I was human. 

We all make mistakes.

It was possibly the most rewarding thing I ever said.

My second note, and I am, as I said, no expert here, is this. When you are served yourself, eat. Eat with respect and don’t enjoy it, but don’t act in disgust either. It’s been especially made for you, and refusing it shows you have no concern for how it felt when you served it up to someone else. It’s a time to learn and grow; you don’t like that taste? Maybe then don’t serve it up to anyone else again.

Many years later, I thought I was in love with another. Head over heels in love. I am a man who can say sorry, but I am also a man who still thinks it is too "rom-com" to speak of butterflies and love at first sight. But I am a man who has experienced it and does believe in it. There was going to be a wedding; there were invitations; there was a feeling I had not experienced before. I had loved, in hindsight, only once before, but this new love I felt was so different. This wasn’t consuming love, not obsessing dangerously unhealthy love; this was something I cannot define. I can only speak of a few things that explain some small part of that love. 

Once, when I had watched his lifeless body begin to breathe again, I saw the universe and all time and space spread before me. Like an unknown God had spoken of love for the first time. Like time itself had stopped, and in a split second I was able to travel the entire universe in joy that he was alive.

When I made love to him, an expression I would never use with anyone else I met but him, I felt an explosion (not that!), an explosion of love that seemed to take me to another level. I can’t explain it. I don’t want to rationalize it; it was too beautiful.

Can you honestly say that you would give everything you have, everything you can get hold of, every part of you, even the parts that bring you shame, to someone? It was a level of love I still feel lucky to this day to have been allowed to experience. It is better to have loved than never to have loved at all, and no matter how much pain was to follow, I stand by that quote. I am blessed to have loved him.

When Karma served up her plate, it was poison to my heart.

In some respects, I am glad that I had done the things I did to another. It gave me respect for the hurt I caused and the ability to trust that if I did it and it wasn’t about the other person, then when he did it, it was the same. It gave me the ability to see clearly, see the events for what they were. I was able to see him as human, flawed; it was a mistake that there are other factors rather than just him and me. I was given peace by what I had done in some way because I had already apologized and it had been accepted by the person I hurt. Most importantly, it gave me clarity—I needed to accept I couldn’t judge anyone.

With a love like this, it hurt like hell in those few hours to hear the story of his perceived failure, but the hurt in his eyes when he told me hurt me more. I wanted to take that away, almost rewrite my own past, and take away the hurt I had caused. The day he told me he was so different. His usual handsome face was gray and tormented. His posture slumped, his personality and brightness dimmed. I cannot ever erase how bad I felt for him. He cried, he sobbed, he begged, and I know he loved. I owed karma my respect.

When he finished, when he finally released the torment of his soul, I was crouched in front of him. Holding his hand through the darkness. I spoke in soft words, and in absolute truth, I forgive you. 

I reminded him we are humans; I told him we are more than one event. I kissed his tears away, I held his hands, and I told him he had my support.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I told him it was painful; I made him aware it wasn’t what I wanted and that he may need to work with me to ease our journey together. But I also told him I loved him because he said sorry. I made love to him that night too. Because I loved him, and that is all that matters.

You can continue in disgust if you wish, but I am proud to say I forgave.

Not only did it take away the elephant in the room, but it helped me. I let it go; I honestly and truly did. It took a little time, and things were never perfect after; they can’t be because the concept does not exist. But I can honestly say that I felt the apology was honest, and with a good heart, let me release some of the pain. The fact I had done this to someone else I had loved made me accept humanity and all the complications of love. Sorry is not a hard word to say. Sorry is a complex thing to understand.

My next note on the subject is this. You are not sorry if you do it again, because now you know the pain it caused. That's a choice.

Now, I am not too harsh on this subject because we humans (including me) struggle to learn. Sometimes other factors play into our choices, of which we have little control. Sometimes we are just pissed and make terrible decisions. But I always refer back to an event in my own life, which explains why sorry should mean that you take steps to stop it from repeating again.

Our dog took a liking to the grandchildren’s noses. So much so, he bit two of them on the nose in one family diner. He isn’t a violent dog; he wears a jumper and sleeps sixteen hours a day. He has to bring a teddy bear to bed every single night, of his own accord. He wants a cuddle every couple of hours, and he is never aggressive to anyone. But he bit them on the nose for reasons I do not condone or understand fully. 

I was sorry that happened. So sorry the children had experienced it, that it may make them fear dogs, or that they were unsafe in my home, so sorry that I made sure it never happened again within my control. To this day, the dog goes to my friends house every single time the grandchildren visit. They ask to see him or to play with him, but I say no. I am so sorry it happened. I won't put the children, or the dog, for that matter, in a situation where it could happen again. He caused hurt; he is my responsibility, as are they, so I do something to stop pain and hurt. I am so sorry it happened that I could not bear for it to happen again. 

That is sorry. Repeating it endlessly and using the word over and over again guarantees you are not sorry. That you didn’t understand the pain, or worse still, didn’t think it valid. Don’t say sorry and not mean it.

What do you hear when someone says sorry? What do you mean when you say it?

This all leads me to my final note on the subject. My advice is this: only say it if you really understand it and mean it. You don’t really "love" your purse; you like it. So if you are not sorry, don’t waste its value with empty words. Sorry should mean that you regret what you did, that you wish it could have been different as to not cause pain, and that you endeavor not to cause that pain again. Respect is shown in the true use of the word. So many people use it to gain forgiveness for themselves, to erase what they did, and to not allow any further comeback.

It doesn’t work like that.

Say it for the other person, never for yourself. Never do it for personal gain; never say it if it isn’t real or if it has conditions. Never accept it as true if the above are involved.

The only true apology is honest and about what they did and does not include other factors explaining why they did it. That’s not your concern, or for you to ponder. That’s what they need to do. But if it is honest, almost fearful, but true, and with respect for what they may have caused you, it is worthy. If it’s human, about mistakes and bad choices, take it with a serious dose of reality. If it’s an apology for something that you served up to someone else previously, accept it with all your heart entirely. Because you are accepting it to help us all.

Sorry.

Thank you. I can let go of my fears about you and about myself; now I know you care.

I can help you rid yourself of the guilt you carry, so you can understand my love for you.

And together, we can show the person I hurt before that the world is getting better, not worse. That I understand what I did, how that felt, and that he knows I am human and have learned from it. 

That's how much a little word can achieve.