As I typed out another apology, I thought about how my father used to tell me I should avoid situations in which I need to apologize in the first place. He would follow it up: To show the lesson has been learned and to demonstrate the fidelity of the apology, a human needs to be perfect 100% of the time. Forgiveness is then an option for the forgivee.
When my friends and family look at me, an adult woman, they see someone who is desperate not to be abandoned. I make mistakes mainly in my tone and inability to form meaningful connections without trying to use the bad things that are happening to me as a tool to bond. Despite hundreds of dollars poured into therapy and a variety of knives that I had thrown out before starting the three courses of 90-day anti-anxiety pills, my apologies have persisted. I continuously find myself in a position of dialing a familiar number, being let down easy, not knowing how to pivot and adjust my tone to hide my confusion, and then apologizing for being so off-putting. I do this with everyone. Even with pills and words and papers with reminders written in familiar handwriting, I still cannot understand why a friend might love to see me with open arms and then not want to anymore. I don’t know why when I accidentally deleted myself from the trivia night group chat, nobody let me back in. Over the summer, I am doubtful anyone will call and ask to see me on a weekend. Still, I tell myself it’ll be okay and I know something will probably be okay. I’ve proven that through trial and error since December.
My tactic to avoid frequent apologies is docility. My brain is foggy anyway, which I am self-conscious about because I sound stupider than I am, so quietness is an easy out in conversations where I get angry at changes happening in easy ways. I get angry when I do talk a little more because I drop words in my sentences and mispronounce things because all of a sudden my tongue doesn’t feel right in my mouth. Everything moves slowly and I am corrected on the little errors I make when trying to catch back up. The slow molasses words give me time to form questions that will push good things away by giving way to the reality that I am not very neat.
My new mental collapse, fueled by the stupid medication I chose to be on before my doctor quit, is something to marvel at if you’re not me. I woke up shaking this morning and cried on the drive to work. I wanted to call for help but if my brain knows anything now (I’ve trained it up good finally), it’s that I’ve got to deal with all of everything alone. I took another pill and went to talk to a friend and heard my tongue slip and thought: I can’t do anything about it now.
I sit next to my bed wrapping a variety of gifts with my mouth full of apologies begging to come out. I will probably hide the gifts for my sort-of-boyfriend, my mom, my friends, and my brother, and forget about the ways in which I loved to pick everything out eventually, unearthing the silly presents once I’ve been let down.
