I'm Sorry to Say...

Dear Sorry,

You might be wondering why I’m writing to you, Sorry. I use you all the time in my life—to show sympathy when someone dies: “I’m sorry.” Or to express contrition when something goes wrong. I say that I’m sorry when something’s not my fault but I don’t want the other person to get upset. I even say sorry when someone bumps into me walking down the street because they’re on their phone or careless or just don’t see me. I’m the one apologizing when that happens, and most of the time the other person doesn’t apologize back.

So, I’m guilty of not only using you, but using you too much. Saying “I’m sorry” when I’ve done nothing wrong is something that I grew up with, was taught to do. Apologizing to de-escalate, apologizing to calm down the room if it was tense, or sometimes to diffuse just one person. Sometimes said with a smile, sometimes said to the ground, sometimes said with an angry tone. Sometimes sarcastically.

“Sorry” has a part to play in the English language, don’t get me wrong. There are times when you belong in someone’s mouth but aren’t allowed to escape. Such as when someone who says they love another person raises a fist to their so-called loved one. Or perhaps when a person uses their words to cut down someone else for no reason except to make themselves feel bigger than the other person. Those abusers should apologize, should let you go free, but they most often don’t. Or, if they do mouth “Sorry,” they don’t mean it.

Then there are the bigger people up the food chain who need you more than I do. The ones who destroy other people’s lives with their actions. The bosses who lower their employees’ wages while taking home a bigger cut of the profits. The greedy corporations who lay off workers who’ve been coming into their jobs, day in and day out, for years, decades, and all they get is a pink slip. Or the people who abuse their positions of power to harm the helpless, the powerless, the ones who need their sympathy the most. All of them should be using you, but they tend to avoid you. To pretend you don’t exist. As if saying “Sorry” is dirty or shameful or weak.

Perhaps there should be more people like me who use you too much rather than the ones who don’t use you at all. Perhaps if people said they were sorry, they might eventually mean it. And, if they eventually meant it, perhaps they might change their behavior for the better. Because change comes from within, and being empathetic is not weak or shameful or dirty—it’s where we should all start as human beings in order to make the world a better place.

Maybe I’m being idealistic. If there are doormats who are always saying sorry, why would the bullies change their behavior? When someone sees “no” as “yes,” they might also see “sorry” as an invitation to take whatever they want from the other person. It’s not an invitation, not at all—that’s what they don’t understand. Acknowledging one’s faults isn’t a weakness, but a strength. Being able to apologize and do so sincerely doesn’t make a person “lesser than” but makes them greater than they were before.

However, if there’s an excess of people not saying “Sorry,” there is also an excess of people who are shouldering too much of the burden of responsibility too. I’m one of the people who needs to stop apologizing for things I didn’t do. Problems and faults that are mine? Yes, I will take ownership of those. I will shout “Sorry” from the rooftops for all the mistakes I’ve made, the people I’ve hurt, either intentionally or unintentionally. You can’t be alive and be perfect, and so if you’re still alive, you will have to apologize at some point in your life. Because you will do or say something stupid or hurtful and will have to step up and realize it and apologize.

But on the flip side, there’s a place and a time, and I’ve apologized too many times for things that weren’t on me. I will shoulder my own burdens, but I don’t have to take yours. I don’t have to be the person constantly apologizing when I did nothing wrong in order to stop someone else from yelling again, for blaming me for something that I did not do or say.

And so, I will bite my lip. And so, I will hold my tongue. And so, I will not say “Sorry” when I do not feel sorry because I did nothing wrong and the other person’s pent-up rage is not my fault for releasing.

I have been dependent on “Sorry” for too long. It is now someone else’s responsibility to take up the work that is unfinished. I’ve done my job, and it’s over now. I will let “Sorry” go to the next person in line, and hopefully they will use it better than I ever did.

Thank you for what you’ve done for me, but the baton has been passed.

Respectfully,

Alison