I used to be an excessive apologizer, even when I owed no one anything. It was an unfortunate side effect of being a people pleasure, wanting to be liked, and not knowing how to handle screwing up. Until in high-school ( junior year to be exact) I had the opportunity to play, "The Lady In Blue" in For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Wasn't Enough.
My most beloved spoken word in this masterful and painfully real automatic screenplay by Shange was "Sorry". As I delivered this passionate Soliloquy wearing my mom's royal blue 80's off-shoulder dress-thing with bell sleeves the words of the Lady In Blue echoed against every rib beyond my diaphragm. Reverberating through the walls of recollection for years and years to come until one day I became the Lady in Blue. The Lady in Blue didn't need no more sorries. She just wanted people to come correct.
There are times when I do want a sorry more than anything. There are times when I spit-up 2-3 sorries a day on accident, followed by a nasty bile of self deprecatory berating. It's an awful habit, truly superfluous. But for the most part, sorry can be worse than f***. It's one of those things that people get a little bit too comfortable saying. So to you (yes you!) who find yourself on the path to being a serial apologizer, I challenge you to rinse your mouth out with soap, eat something repulsive, pop a rubber band against your wrist, or twist that tongue up in a knot--anything to prevent uttering the word sorry. Whip out your thesaurus (.com for millennials) and find a surrogate effective immediately, because If the sorry train is your main mode of transportation, you should probably get used to walking, cuz it's way more healthy. You're better off.
Because next thing you know, your sorries will be replacers for rebuttals, precursors to your excuses, and place-holders for much needed behavioral change, or worse, invitations for others to walk all over you. Sorries can even lead you to self pity for your wrong doing. Or vice versa, for others to feel justified in their wrong doing.
Don't get too comfy. Resist all temptation to let your ass sink softly into the metaphorical temperpedic cushion of "Hurt, apologize, repeat". It is now time for you to "get on with it then" and face the strange chachachanges.
Words are only sounds with attached relative meanings. They are there to help break the fall for our actions but they don't make up for them. The sad truth is, that like the Lady in Blue, some of us don't need sorry anymore. Some of us have sorry greeting us at the front door. Some of us see a little bit too much "sorry" on the daily, and it's getting to be overbearing and stalkery. Some of us got sick with the "sorry" flu and are in dior need for the master cleanse.
As my father and his father before him put it best "Don't ever apologize. Just shut up and change your behavior." Don't let your sorry become an eventual jeremiad (thesaurus.com word of the day ya'll) for why you treat others the way you do. Don't let it be the disclaimer for your complains about yourself. Don't let it be an invitation for people to not take you seriously. Just flat out eliminate it from your vocab unless it is to foreshadow change and better days...because the best way to make it up with someone you care about is simply to own up (listen to this song by Darondo) and be better. Spare others by saving yourself. Don't let your apologies keep you from evolution.
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