You may not realize this,
but the reason I write the things I write isn’t to show you how good I am or how good I think you can be. It’s about showing you how flawed and human I am and inviting myself to do better. I try to make sure that I’m comfortable with failing. That I am upfront and open about my failures. I’m trying to increase my self-awarness. So today, I’m posting an apology letter that I wrote someone who is very dear to me.
Regardless of what happened between us, I accidentally let my ego get the last word. And for me that’s unacceptable. So here goes:
Dear Blank
Please read to the end, this is the apology you deserve, and I’ll be damned if the last thing I said to you was a lecture instead of a heartfelt apology.
Genuinely need to humble myself here.
I’m sorry. For a lot.
First, I’m sorry because I failed to trust you.
I failed to give you the space and time I told you I would, because I didn’t realize it, but I couldn’t handle the uncertainty of it. “I’m sorry. I’ll just never speak to you again until you speak to me, but know that I love you.” in retrospect sounds like I’m writing you off. And honestly maybe I subconsciously was preparing to be abandoned. And that’s not trust.
If I was in a more self-aware space I could’ve asked, “hey can we create rules around communication so we can be in contact? I’m not trying to go cold Turkey on one of my fav people” Or better yet, “can you define for me in the next couple of days how I should interact with you so that we can establish that I’m trying to respect your boundaries? I still don’t know which ones I’ve crossed based on our prior interactions, and because I’ve mostly had unconventional friendships, ours included, I don’t know what you deem appropriate for a friendship with me.”
So sorry I didn’t trust/encourage you to specify and instead tried to just fix it myself. And this sucks.
1. I promised to believe in you, but demonstrated I didn’t, with a gross lack of self-awareness.
2. I made a mess of it.
Hopefully, in the future, I’ll do a better job.
I had felt betrayed that you didn’t tell me the truth, but in reality, you told me what you felt when you felt it. And you trusted me to hear you and to meet you where you were. And it seemed like I was going to, but then I said a bunch of things that probably left you feeling very judged. And I didn’t mean for that. It came from a fear of my prior failures being the reason we were in that moment. And I didn’t want to take sole responsibility for my failure to communicate, so I blamed you for not understanding immediately, EVEN THOUGH when I gave you time and tried again, you showed up for me. I even admitted as much while minimizing the value of it. So thank you for trying and putting up with it. I wish it could’ve been easier.
As a result I probably hurt you. You’re a tough cookie, so I won’t assume. But if I did sorry for that, too.
You let me in, in a lot of ways... and while I thought I was accepting you for who you are, I probably drifted into holding on to the you that showed up, because I was worried you wouldn’t know you were special to me if I stuck to the same rules I stick to for everyone else. I have a fear that people won’t feel special to me because I’m a relationship anarchist. Other people treat some people differently, according social norms to demonstrate they matter. I try to treat everyone according to what I understand makes them feel loved, and what feels like self love, because if I take the time to cultivate a relationship I want it to be special.
I want to show up for THAT relationship.
That’s all I thought I wanted from you. But that’s not true. I wanted you to know I had absolute and unwavering faith in you. I wanted you to know that everyone IS special, but you are special to me. And somehow showing up the way I normally do(as best as I can until I know better) couldn’t feel like enough with you if you didn’t seem CERTAIN I was over the moon to show up for you, however was best.
And I have to admit, I got attached. Which in the spirit filled space of insta I troll around on is a bad thing. But in reality it’s just human.
But sorry for any pain I caused because of whatever I got attached to. It’s hard to say. Loving you felt like and act of loving myself. Accepting you felt like accepting myself. And I had read something about finding your soulmate and feeling at peace instead of feeling your heart rate go crazy. And even though I just wanted to be your best friend... I felt this amazing, growing glow in stillness with you. It felt like if I just sat still with you long enough, it would flow out of us and envelop the world. But that was how I felt. Not you. And I was fine with however you felt, but like a teenager in love for the first time I really couldn’t believe anyone could understand how I felt.
So when it felt like perhaps you couldn’t understand this unbelievable feeling I had, I wasn’t sure what ABOUT ME was causing the disconnect. But I had an idea. I couldn’t JUST be myself suddenly. Because being a relationship anarchist to some people doesn’t look like love. So I looked at my rules, and I bent them, and that was inauthentic of me. Perhaps I treated you as less equal to people I was more practiced at communicating with. Sorry for shying away from harder moments with you. You’re strong. I believe that.
While I didn’t feel this way at the time, I’m worried I laid out my “grievances” in a way where it sounded like you were the villain and I needed an apology. I wasn’t even asking for that. It was like a much more sophisticated version of me using my words in first grade.
I was like a little kid whose closest friend moved away. And when we talked that friend said, “hey, I think you hurt my feelings.” And I said, “I’m sorry, how?” Doing my best to fix the problem.
And they said, “I appreciate the apology, I need to think about it.”
And I waited a day and was like, “well if you won’t tell me, I’m gonna tell you all the ways you’ve hurt my feelings. You’re not perfect either and I tried to avoid this but since YOU don’t know how to use your WORDS, I’m probably a better friend than you.”
And what did that all really mean?
1st grade me, “I’m scared you don’t wanna be my friend and I tried really hard. I’ve lost my closest friend before, so I tried to learn to be a better friend... and now I’M EVEN MORE SCARED because what if I’m always doomed to lose my closest friend no matter how hard I try to be a good one.”
So I’m sorry for letting the fear take over. I was being honest, but if I wanted to be brave, in the silence I would’ve said, “hey, I’m scared I’ve fucked up permanently. Can you let me know if I have?”
Would’ve been a decent way to go.
I just was internally fucked up over failing to be the perfect friend. And I know perfection is dumb, but that’s one of my flaws and I’m trying to correct it. All I needed to do was keep putting my ego aside as I tried to be a good one. Risking the pain.
I recognize my excitement about how beautiful of a person I see you as caused me to worry anytime I felt like you couldn’t perceive my actions as loving.
I’d assumed the work I’d done internally would solve interpersonal shit and that was wishful thinking.
I just need you to know that I’m not over here feeling smug about what I said.
I’m truly sorry that I’ve hurt my friend.
I’m taking ownership of my BS. I’m recognizing, that what I did in that moment, was what I would’ve wanted you to do if our positions were flipped. I would’ve wanted you to tell me just how you felt I’d failed to show up for you. I’d want that so I could apologize, express how that’s not what I meant to do, and then try to move forward. I was hoping you would just tell me specifically what I’d done wrong and what kind of friend you wanted out of me... if you even wanted one. If you had said no I’d happily respect that. But the ambiguity scared me... so I manufactured some certainty.
It’s why weeks ago I asked, “why are you friends with me?”
And when you said, “I don’t usually think about that kind of thing. I just like your company I guess.” I got nervous. Because how I was I supposed to know what was safe if I wanted to show up for you, but just be myself?
I’m odd.
Being myself is diving into the other’s experience as deeply as I would dive into my own. I want find their uncertainty, shame, and fear and remind them that it’s beautiful to be so human and thank them for risking the fullness of their humanity with me. Sharing shadow is actually a thing that makes me feel loved and loving.
So:
Sorry if you just felt invaded. Sorry if I left you feeling exposed. Sorry if you felt shamed or judged. If you felt like I was frustrated with you and that it was a bad thing. Frustration is a beautiful part of existence for me. Being frustrated with people and sticking around is a sign I really like them. I like being able to survive disagreements. I don’t start shit intentionally, but I don’t run from it either when I can help it.
Also, you kept asking me if I was trying to fix you and I’m sorry.
I kept saying I wasn’t trying to fix you, and my best explanation at the time was, “I really like fixing myself, and sometimes people project that I want to do that to them.”
But what I would’ve probably said, had I been more aware that this was probably just shifting blame for the feelings my behavior generates is this: “Hey friend, I feel insecure about my role in relationships. This is why I’m a relationship anarchist, so I intentionally create the definition of whatever label a person chooses with me as an active process. I really like the security of when people tell me what they like and would like to see out of our friendship so that I can show I care. I worry about being good to people, and some of my traits can lead to painful interactions. I’m blunt and inquisitive and frequently tactless. I’m working on this. I’ve been burned before by people I’ve gotten close to who don’t tell me what their rules are. I’m not one who personally needs a lot of rules and curiosity is one of the ways I love... so without rules I just want to explore infinitely until I hit walls. And sometimes, I crash into those walls. But I never fall out of love because I never believe a person is solved. I believe in the endless beauty of their mystery. Sometimes, when I hit those walls my curiosity can turn into ‘fix it’ energy. I want to know about their process and why or why they are doing anything. It’s not that I believe I’m going to fix anyone... I just genuinely believe everyone is fixing themselves and I like to know how. I believe that everyone else we perceive is like a mirror. What I don’t like in others reflects what I don’t like in myself or in the world. As a result, what I’ve decided is not for me, can seem like a judgment if other people engage in it. I do not mean to judge or make you or anyone else feel wrong or small. AND I recognize this is contradicted by my endless attempts to question my ways of being and find “better” ways of being. I am contradictory in this way, but I hope it doesn’t have to be a problem. I love you friend.”
My final apology, unless you think of something else... is that I’m longwinded.
I think my actual final apology would be the amount of time it took to actually get this written and sent. But I’ve spent the time really making sure that I knew what was I was sorry for. Sometimes when I’m struggling, I do not know what is eating me up inside. This is why I spend so much time alone meditating I think. To know what my peace feels like and to maintain it. I’ve mastered a self originating discomfort, and even a discomfort that I know the origin of, but it takes a lot to process ambiguous discomfort from a specific source I find.
Guys I want you to know. I did actually send this. I’m not sitting here expecting forgiveness out of the person. That’s not why I did this. I did this so that I could forgive myself for failing AGAIN. It’s hard to admit when you’ve done something wrong. But for me I’ve gotten to the point where it’s harder to mess up in the same way over and over without taking responsibility. With every apology I issue I try to honor the person I’m apologizing to and all the other people in my life by doing better next time, regardless of who it’s with.
Forgiveness is important. But we need to forgive ourselves and then work to redeem ourselves so that the apology that we issue is meaningful.
I think forgiving is also important. There’s an African proverb that says, “hatred is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.” It doesn’t always turn to hatred… but I don’t believe forgiveness demands you reconcile. But I do think we should forgive others. I genuinely believe this is a thing that we do for ourselves.
Thanks for making it to the end of this guys. If I were a better blogger I’d have something actionable for you to do… But I don’t. I suppose you can leave a comment cause I always want to know what your thoughts are.