How I learned to put my money where my mouth is.

Forgiveness is a strange thing. It can sometimes be easier to forgive our enemies than our friends. It can be hardest of all to forgive people we love. - Fred Rogers

I have always believed that a real apology should have parts of it that are important. You should start by admitting that you hurt someone. Then move on to explain how you hurt them, specifically. Then you say you are sorry for hurting them. You then should outline how you will avoid harming them in the same way in the future. And in my opinion, again, say that you hurt them, and that you are sorry. These parts of an apology are things that you have to think about in order to tell someone that you are sorry, The words “I’m sorry” make me insane. They do nothing to fix the problem. They do nothing to address the actions and how you will fix them. You just say two Magic Words and the person is supposed to not be hurt any more. And that is just not how it works. And I actually think it’s insulting to do.

Open hands in such a way that remind me of the people who taught me how to forgive and to accept forgiveness.

When I was very young, I had parents who never apologized for anything, even if they were wrong. And that is a very hard lesson for a child to learn. It doesn’t teach them empathy or sympathy or humanity. It teaches them that they are wrong and that they don’t deserve to forgive or be forgiven when something is wrong. And it didn't help me. It doesn’t help anyone. But my parents are boomers and I am GenX and we got ignored a lot. A. Lot. I saw someone refer to us as the feral generation. We were left to ourselves and they hoped we lived. I have more than 10 cousins also in the same generation and we all lived. And as an aside. my grandparents had a working farm. Cows, chickens, a huge garden and draught horses. Nothing more hilarious and dangerous than a 7 year old on the back of a Belgian without a saddle on a July afternoon with the rest of the cousins egging them on in the back 40. Where no adults could see us. Or hear us. Again, we all lived, but I am not sure how. We got thrown out the back door at 8 am and didn't come back until the dinner bell rang at noon thirty or one of us was bleeding. And even the bleeding was if we couldn’t stop the bleeding. So we learned to take care of ourselves and each other, but we didn’t learn how to be wrong and forgive ourselves or how to accept someone else being wrong and forgiving them. It just wasn’t in the blueprints for my generation.

When I was 18 I moved in with my boyfriend and his family. At one point, a friend of mine managed to tell a bunch of people a personal thing about our relationship. And so, someone who I would have done anything for, would have gotten up at 2 am with a shovel and a bag of lime without question, was out of my life. And everyone who knew me, knew this person should never, ever cross my path again. Because if they did, I was going to beat her ass in such a way that she would remember me every time she brushed her teeth. I never went looking for her. I never went out of my way. But everyone knew. And that was that. I simply was not friends with her. (I keep typing fiends instead of friends which makes me smile because we are definitely best fiends.)

And then, one day, I was sitting in a friend’s apartment, and there was a knock at the door. We were all still very young and were all connected through one horrible thing or another. My friend Renee had the apartment with her boyfriend Tom, and I knew her from high school and worked with him. That apartment was a hub for a lot of comic book reading and listening to Prince and watching was was known as “Japanimation”. And since there were no “adults” we could do what we wanted to. Forget that we were all adults at that point, we all still felt like we were doing something sneaky and silly and there were no grownups to tell us comic books were stupid or not to drink wine coolers and have dance parties in the kitchen. Renee got up and answered the door, turned and looked at me and said “Uh, your friend is here and wants to talk to you…” I had a car that stood out so she knew I was there. We also had other people we knew in the same apartment complex so you could always tell who was hanging out where. And I could tell that Renee was getting ready to tell her to leave because I didn’t want to talk to her. But she said that my friend wanted to apologize to me. Which made me pause. Apologize? That was odd. I had not considered someone would want to apologize to me. So I decided to put the assbeating on hold and step out to speak to her. Because I had never considered that someone would apologize to me.

Standing across from her in a parking lot, knowing people were watching and listening out the sliding door, I was willing to listen, but not hopeful. She and I had been very close. She had dated my best friend in high school and I kept her from getting suspended during a rather upsetting issue we were dealt with, together, my senior year. We were so close to the end of the year, I would not let her get suspended. She was too close to me. This is why I had been so upset by her behavior. Because she knew how much I loved her. Her father died when we were still in high school and I was one of the few people around for it. I have been a grief-eater for a very long time, without knowing what it was. I knew how to hold space for people for their needs. It was not something I was ever taught. I just knew how to do it and how important it was. So I stood there, arms crossed across my chest, not a very open stance. But it was how I felt. Not very welcoming. Not very interested in what she had to say to me. Because the apologies that I was used to were not very kind, apologetic or made me feel like someone was sorry about what they had done. And I had simply deleted her from my life. I didn’t need her one way or the other. She didn’t exist any more for me. I can hold a grudge like no one else. Like I make little baskets with ribbons and bows and flowers and carry them around with me for years. But in this case, I had simply ended my interest in her existence. So I assumed this was going to be much like any other apology I had ever gotten. Being told “I’m sorry” and being expected to think that it solved everything. And what happened floored me.

Roddie, who had once been so very close to me, told me that she had hurt me. And that she knew how she hurt me. And that she knew it was wrong for her to have spoken to others about me without my permission. And that she would work on fixing what she had done and that she still understood if I didn’t want to be friends. But something happened on my end. I forgave her. Immediately. Completely. Without reservation. And I was free. And it felt incredible. My chest felt light. My shoulders relaxed. And my friend, a person who was there for me when my son was born, who spent so much time with myself and my boyfriend while she was dating my best friend, was back. With a clarity, I could see that she was an amazing person for having the bravery to come and talk to me, face to face. Because I was not known as someone who would back down from a fight. As well as the understanding that the incident in high school, when I was trying to keep her from beating the ass of someone who richly deserved it, when she swung on the other person, she missed and hit me square in the jaw. As hard as she could. And my reaction was to look at her and say “That was your one. Don’t ever try that again.” She told me later she was very disconcerted that her hardest hit just made me irritated. Nowadays I would crumple and cry, but that’s because I am old and decrepit. (snerk)

But I had to admit that I had to do what I always said: when given an apology, which was deeply meant and a change of behavior, I would forgive and would let it go. And it felt incredible. I think, for both of us. Because we had each other, again. And it was a friendship that now, 36 years later, is still deep and so helpful for me. She and I can go to lunch and talk about absolutely nothing or talk about the things that deeply upset us. Without her, I would not have made it through the kids’ childhood. She helped me with getting them to school when my ex took off and left me alone with two kids while I was working two or three jobs. She has been a shoulder to cry on, a sister to stand on the front lines with, a grandmother to share joy with, a riotgrrl to ride shotgun with and a heart and soul to keep me anchored on this earth.

We stand together, umbrellas and all. We have for quite a while.

We became protectors because we weren’t protected, ourselves. So we make sure everyone has a protector, every chance we get.

And somewhere there’s a photo of us at age 17. And when I find that, I will post it. Because we were pretty damn cute back then!