I’m Sorry

Monday, March 31st, 2008, 10:32 am

Don’t worry folks. This is not a soppy post giving an apology to someone I should have apologized to a long time ago. Y’all know me well enough to know that I’ll just call the person out of the blue and apologize, even if that individual didn’t remember me OR the wrong. This post is about how often we as women say “I’m sorry” when an apology is not needed.

What started this rant: Yesterday I called my mother to talk again about the divorce. It looks like everything is progressing as it should and the divorce should be final in a couple months. A reasonable settlement has been accepted and we’re hopeful that Dad won’t try to drag it out. (There’s no benefit to him to do so.) Anyway, while discussing the meeting, Mom said something to the effect of “I’m sorry your dad doesn’t like how this is going.”

SCREECH!

I had to interject. “Oh no, you’re not. You’re not sorry one bit. You have NOTHING to be sorry about.” I didn’t say this in an accusatory tone but rather a supportive tone. She understood what I was trying to say. She tried a couple other times to rephrase what she said, each time with an apology involved. I finally told her the only person she owed an apology to was herself. My sister and I were fine and weren’t hurt by this. She was the one who was hurt by not seeing that Dad was cheating on her. She was the one who was hurt by staying with a man who cared so little for her. And really the only person who should apologize is my father for his actions.

Women apologize too much. We apologize when we stand up for ourselves. “I’m sorry, but I was here first and you may not get in front of me in line.” We apologize for giving an honest answer. “I’m sorry, but I’m really not in the market for new siding on my house.” “I’m sorry, but I really cannot help with a donation at this time.” Yes, I understand this is merely wording that women use to appear polite, but it is language you ONLY hear women use. Men don’t apologize when they give honest answers nor when they stand up for themselves. It’s time that women stopped using such meek language.

In dance class, I instruct my students to not apologize for mistakes. If we apologize for all mistakes we make in class, we spend the entire class going “oops oops sorry sorry oops oops” instead of fixing our mistakes and moving on.  I tell them to apologize only if pain, blood, or broken bones are involved. “No blood, no foul.”

So, let’s take an example from that instruction in our lives outside the studio. Do not apologize when your actions have caused no harm. If you are standing up for yourself, you do not need to apologize. If you are saying no to a salesman or solicitor, don’t preface it with “I’m sorry.” And lastly, don’t express an apology for the feelings of others when it is their actions that brought harm upon themselves, particularly when they also harmed you in the process. Apologizing for these things even only as polite language is timid.

Tags: family, rant, women

Childhood’s End and other Stories

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008, 11:58 am

Arthur C. Clarke has died. Not my favorite science fiction writer, but one of the first I read. I think the first book of his I read was The City and the Stars which just happened to be among the paperbacks sitting on Mom’s side of the bookshelves. I loved that I was reading something a lot less juvenile than Andre Norton’s works (and that stupid piece of dreck that Heinlein wrote, Podkayne of Mars). I picked up Childhood’s End so I would have something to read on a flight to a speech competition. It was a wonderful surprise. I loved the twist of who the aliens really were.

So today, I sit at my keyboard remembering the smell of old paperbacks as I was reading into the wee hours of morning so I could grab another book for the new day. Ah, that’s a good memory!

The Blog Entry That Wasn’t

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008, 12:37 pm

A big apology is owed to the few of you who visit here semi-regularly. I’d postponed most blogging until I could post this.

After more than 20 years of strife, my parents are divorcing. My father has been served with the papers so I can now talk about it.

It all started as far as I can tell back in the late 1970s-early 1980s. Dad was drinking quite a bit and occasionally would talk to me in ways that made it clear that he was unhappy. Not directly, mind you, just enough that even a teenager would know that things were not all right in Casa Bryant. (As if the constant fighting between my parents and my sister didn’t make that evident!) I remember a wedding we went to where my father even said to me, out of earshot of Mom, “Don’t ever get married.”

But Dad never left--he cheated instead. Mom finally caught him my sophomore year talking to his girlfriend on the phone. He left that night, but not without letting my mother know that I’d known all along that he was unhappy. So after I returned about 2 am from a frat party, my mother called me to ask why I never told her. What could I have said? “Hey Mom. I know I’m just a teenager but I think Dad’s so unhappy he might be screwing around on you.” Yeah, like any parent listens to his/her kids.

Dad came back a day or two later but the damage had been done. They asked I not tell my sister (who was a freshman at a college further away). They claimed they were working things out, but I told them I didn’t want to live with them ever again. I’d finally had enough of the fighting even if they hadn’t.

Every year afterwards I would start to dread Xmas. I was always afraid that the fighting I remembered would return and that some blow up would happen to take me back to my teen years. Shoot, I’d have rather spent the holiday alone than waiting for the inevitable to happen.

Dad officially retired back in the early to mid 1990s. He was offered an early retirement and he took it. He sold some real estate for a while, but what he really did with his time is go drinking and (probably) womanizing. When Mom retired 3 years ago, Dad started to complain that she was cramping his style. He was drinking even more, and was arrested once for drunk driving.

Then two years ago, with my mother-in-law with us, my father drank too much, sat down on the ottoman in front of the Christmas tree, then leaned back and fell on the tree, breaking ornaments and the tree. What I had always feared had happened, and in front of my mother-in-law. Dad stormed out of the house and drove away (drunk), and Mom picked up the pieces. He called and apologized. I wanted to call the police for his drunk driving, but Mom asked me not to.

There was never blatant evidence that Dad was cheating at this time, but all his talking about his pool tournament partner, a woman about my age, made it clear to me that the relationship wasn’t innocent. I starting suggesting to Mom that she should take steps to protect her assets in the event that Dad had a drunk-driving accident.

Then it all hit the fan the night before my father’s birthday. Apparently his girlfriend called my mother to invite Mom to a birthday party for Dad. Mom confronted him; they fought. Mom caught him on the phone with the woman. They fought some more and he took off. Mom tracked him to his girlfriend’s house, set off his car alarm (with the remote button, not vandalism) and they fought some more.

And now they’re getting a divorce. There was a right way of doing this, but Dad chose to take the coward’s way. Mom’s not an angel nor is she innocent in the deterioration of the marriage. But Dad’s cheating wasn’t right; it never is. A spouse who cheats shows very clearly he/she really doesn’t care about the other one at all.

And worst of all for Mom is hearing about it now. Many people at her church have been telling her that they felt she was a saint for sticking it out this long. Apparently it was known about the community that Dad was catting about. In fact, he was telling people that Mom and he had an arrangement. How nice of him.

A friend was going through a similar situation last summer with her parents. They did not get divorced and she is still trying to navigate that emotional minefield. I’m hoping that for my family’s sake that my parents just get the divorce and be done with it. 24 years of bickering and lying are enough. I don’t think my sister and I could deal very well with a reconciliation at this point.

Tags: family

3 Day Coincidence? I think NOT!

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008, 4:52 pm

A friend from my childhood just got in touch with me via Classmates.com. We chatted for a while, and in the course of mentioning what we were doing in our lives he brought up that he’s walking in the DC Breast Cancer 3-Day. It looks like I have a team after all! (But I still would like a woman to join the team to be my tent mate.)

Tags: friends, walking, 3day

Gary Gygax is Dead

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008, 4:50 pm

It’s not often a person can be said to have changed the world in any way. Gygax was one such person. I’m only a small time gamer, but I know that all the RPGs I’ve played are based on that game he created in the 1970s. Tolkien may have been the inspiration, but it took Gygax to make fantasy into a game.

‘Tis a pity that the man who invented the saving roll in the end rolled badly against cancer. If there is an afterlife, I’d like to think that Gygax is there putting up his screen and inviting the angels to roll up characters…

Tags: gaming