All Apologies

I used to think an apology looked like a long letter. And I take pride in constructing a strong, well expressed letter.

Actually, an apology looks more like a sentence, a very short one: I messed up; I'm sorry.

I once thought I was too busy caregiving to commit transgressions. (Okay, I thought that just a few weeks ago, and I stated it aloud in a discussion group -- whoops!)

As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew they weren't true; in fact, I knew the exact opposite was true.

When I’m spread thin caring for people, I’m definitely letting down, disappointing and hurting other people.

And, right now, many of us find ourselves spread thin caregiving, or even just trying to keep ourselves above water.

So the transgression index is high. And this is hard.

When my daughter, now nine, was just a few weeks old, a friend responded to a panicked voicemail I’d left her during a stretch of insomnia and what Dan and I would later dub the poet’s postpartum experience.

She left me a message that I would play over and over:

"The only thing that you need to do right now is keep yourself and your baby alive, everyone else can buzz off” (Okay, she didn’t say buzz)

And that was good advice. That was lifesaving advice.

It’s advice that I’ve thought about a lot recently.

Because while I was keeping myself and my baby alive, I did not show up for very close friends for moments that were important in their lives.

These were friends who I had known for many years, who I loved, who loved me.

And for a couple of them, it ended our relationships.

I wonder, now, if I had just apologized and recognized that I’d hurt them, without trying to explain, in long letters, why I was justified — why my pain was bigger than theirs — if they’d still be in my life.

At the time it felt like suffering their disappointment was too much to bear on top of what I was already bearing --- like how could I have hurt you when I'm the one hurting!

But that's usually when we hurt people, right?

Seriously, I love getting older — and all of the consolations it brings.

Among other things, I recognize when I'm wrong faster. And I don't waste as much time on long letters for things that need to be expressed in short sentiments.

Like the poet Philip Levine, of blessed memory, wrote in The Simple Truth:

Some things
you know all your life. They are so simple and true
they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,
they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker,
the glass of water, the absence of light gathering
in the shadows of picture frames, they must be
naked and alone, they must stand for themselves.

I messed up; I'm sorry.

I will try to do better.

This is what it is to be human and alive.

Shana Tova friends.

Prayer + Action: Global Citizen