scribblechic

Today I want to share an unfinished wondering that has taken up space in my thoughts:

Perhaps, in our most challenging moments, we must first give others what we most need for ourselves.

This week I endeavored to demonstrate small acts of kindness at a time when I felt most vulnerable, setting aside my worries to embrace a different perspective; changing the direction of my thoughts and momentum of my emotions. In looking to give what I needed, I found a wealth of resources within. The smile I thought I had misplaced, the extra minutes I couldn’t seem to spare, the patience I wasn’t gifting myself were ever-present.

So, in the interest of honoring this space of personal reflection, I am pausing here in word to dwell in a question of need.

Five little letters that sometimes stick at the back of my throat in a space between my heart and speech. Too often I speak words of apology passively, poorly. I endeavor to teach my children in words and actions to stand inside their apologies, owning the lesson nestled in their mistakes. Sometimes I fail in my own apologies.

When our children were old enough to string words together my husband and I would ask: What does sorry mean? The contrite response stretched between sing-song sincerity and wide, earnest eyes was a well-memorized chorus of: Sorry means I will try harder next time. or Sorry means I will not do that again. In the earliest days of my experience as a parent, sorry was a lesson sketched in black and white; understand your mistake, accept responsibility, do better.

As my children have grown into more complicated experiences and I have navigated difficult apologies, I have come to recognize a certain frailty in my own expectations. Sometimes our errors are cyclical because we are still learning.

Not long ago I found myself trapped in a moment of remorse overshadowed by hurt; it was a familiar experience. Even as I attempted to speak words of apology I was listening for an apology owed, straddling relationships as I precariously balanced truth and care. My own words were as hollow as the silence that surrounded them; more than an apology, I sought validation. When we speak words of apology as a courtesy without genuine understanding, an apology is little more than a perfunctory display of etiquette; an empty kindness.

I am considering redefining my expectation of apologies. Sorry no longer guards against future errors, rather it validates our sense of self-worth with an exercise in ownership and empathy. Sorry means I don’t want to hurt you and I will try to protect you from harm, but when I can’t I will stand beside you because you are more important to me than the harm between us. It also means, I am worthy of doing better.

Sorry is a promise of presence.

With a practiced unintentional disregard for the most burdensome corners of our home I carry the weight of avoidance into the space of my hope. Like a living thing simultaneously separate from and inescapably entangled by the secrets of its inhabitants, our home harbors my most private truths.

In the darkest corners I keep those things I cannot face alongside aspirations; old harms and daydreams shelved where I cannot feel the sharp corners of emotions that slumber in secret. In an act of faith in wholeness and an exercise in clarity, I have begun salvaging self from the long forgotten spaces of lost intentions. I am excusing myself of the One Days and Somedays that were forever burdened with a hollow sense of obligation; assumptions and expectations that I inherited from others’ dreams.

I am tending to the overlooked and long forgotten places of intention, facing quiet demons and noisy doubts.

Last fall I permitted myself the luxury of space and time to create a transition cautiously without the calamity of busyness that might overwhelm or detract my attention from a series of weighted choices. Then, as life often does, my calendar began to fill with commitments that engaged my time and attention in a manner that pushed against the previously quiet corners of my day.

Recently I came to recognize a miscalculation in my previous assumptions. The pressure I thought might create a danger of imbalance, instead invited a lightness of spirit. The commitments I had accepted were exercises in self and selflessness that allowed me to look beyond immediate worries. The attention to decisions I feared might be lost in the momentum of busyness was instead sharpened by a borrowed clarity. More importantly the worries I held so tightly, were suddenly set aside so that opportunities for joy might more easily be grasped.

It is an imperfect experience at a most necessary moment. A lesson in balance that I am still learning.