The Summer I Learned to Speak Without Apologizing

I’ve always been good at saying sorry. Too good. Tripping in the hallway? Sorry. Saying something wrong in class? Sorry. Even breathing too loudly in a quiet room? Sorry. It became automatic, a reflex that I didn’t even notice until one summer when everything changed.

It started on the first day of break. My mom had gone to work, my little brother was at camp, and I had the house entirely to myself. For once, no one was around to notice every little thing I did. I felt like a shadow walking through my own home.

I turned on some music — loud, unapologetic music. Taylor Swift’s Midnights album was playing, and for some reason, the lyrics felt like someone had written them just for me. I danced around my room, tripping over the rug, spinning until I got dizzy. And I didn’t say sorry once. Not to the walls, not to the ceiling, not to myself.

That’s when I noticed the old journal on my desk. I hadn’t touched it in months. Its pages were full of sketches, messy handwriting, scribbled lyrics, and tiny doodles of stars and moons. I flipped it open and found a note I’d written to myself the previous year: “One day, you won’t apologize for existing.” I laughed — a quiet, incredulous laugh. One day? That day felt like it had finally arrived.

The next morning, I went outside. My neighborhood was still quiet — the sun warm, the air carrying the scent of freshly cut grass. I walked to the little park at the end of the street, the one where I used to play when I was eight. A group of kids were there, throwing a frisbee. I didn’t know any of them, but something in me told me to join.

I walked over, heart hammering. “Hey… can I play?” I asked.

They looked at me for a second, sizing me up. Then one boy grinned. “Sure!”

And just like that, I was running, laughing, throwing the frisbee without worrying if I was too clumsy or too slow. I didn’t say sorry when I missed a catch. I didn’t apologize when I tripped over my own feet. I just played. And it was… freeing.

Later that afternoon, I sat on the grass, catching my breath. I realized that for so long, I had been shrinking myself to fit into spaces that weren’t meant for me. I had apologized for my voice, my thoughts, my presence. But in that moment, lying in the sun, I felt larger than I had in years.

That night, I went back to my room and picked up the journal again. I wrote: “Today, I existed without apology. And it didn’t hurt. It felt like… freedom.”

Over the next few weeks, I started to notice the change in small ways. I stopped saying sorry for my opinions in class. I stopped apologizing for taking up space in group projects. I even stopped muttering sorry when I answered my phone. People noticed. Some were confused. Some smiled. Some didn’t care. And that was fine, because I didn’t need their approval anymore.

By the end of the summer, I realized something important: saying sorry isn’t bad. Sometimes it’s kind, sometimes it’s necessary. But when it becomes a reflex, a shield, it stops being about kindness and starts being about fear. Fear of being too loud, too wrong, too much.

That summer, I learned that I could exist in the world without constantly apologizing for it. I could speak, move, and even dance in my room — loud, messy, alive — and I wouldn’t have to say sorry. Not anymore.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the kind of courage that changes everything.