Though I see your point, I must disagree with it. Not because I don’t like the node, it’s one of the best nodes I ever read on E2, but because I am a big believer in the words “
I am sorry”.
Though I do agree, the word “sorry” does not always make up for painful actions and caustic words, I think the person saying them to you makes a world of difference.
I rarely apologize for anything, save the above-mentioned instance of bumping into a stranger on the street. I am a stubborn nineteen-year old, I don’t like to admit I am wrong. EVER!
When I say “I am sorry”, I must really be sorry. I never throw that word around in vain.
I said I was sorry to my mother when she caught me smoking at the age of fifteen. I was genuinely sorry I made her sad and disappointed. I apologized to my high school sweetheart when I cheated on him and lost my virginity with someone else – I truly regretted doing that to him, and to my self. I said I was sorry to my mom’s boyfriend for hating him. Sorry because I couldn’t stop hating him for putting me through all that crap that should go unmentioned, even though he was diagnosed with cancer. I said I was sorry to my best friend for forgetting her birthday and skipping town with a guy while she sat home alone wondering if I planned anything special. I didn’t mean to hurt her, I just lost track of my life.
No one ever said that saying “sorry” makes up for our mistakes. Saying sorry surely hasn’t freed me of the guilt of any of my actions, a few of which I mentioned. But to me, saying sorry means “ I admit -- I fucked up, I know things are broken now, but at least I know that what I did was wrong”.
Sometimes an apology is all I need from a few people in my past.
I am luckier than some, I still talk to my dad, but he was never there for me, or my mom, when he left us then I was six. I look at him talking about his life now, just wishing, wishing that just once he’d say “Susie, I am sorry I didn’t watch you grow up.”
I want the ex love of my, at that time, 17 year old life, to say “I am sorry I used to force sex on you, hit you and not call you when you almost died in an emergency room.” I want my much older cousin, who I am still forced to see every family occasion, to just once wipe that grin off his face and say “I am sorry I undressed you when you were 11 and I was 25, I am sorry I touched you, I fucked up”. I want that kid in 6th grade that called me a dirty Russian and threw food at me to say he was sorry. And many, many, many others... I know their words won’t fix the way they fucked up my life. But at least I’d know they know that they screwed up.
Apologies are great things, too bad that I must agree, they do get thrown around without much thought.