Just Say Sorry...

Today’s prompt takes me down memory lane…

There are people who find this easy to say, whether they are in the wrong or not. And then, there are those that find it difficult to say. Which are you? Have you been in a position where you found it difficult to apologize for something? How did you move on from that moment?

I had just been enrolled into a secondary boarding school; my first time getting separated from my family. The experience was one comparable to grief. I first went into a period of mourning and withdrawal. Soon enough though, I relented and began to adapt.

Separating yourself from family definitely has a way of bringing to light habits and characteristics that you thought were common. But when you are made to live amongst strange people, you realize how weird, and probably wrong, they are.

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I fail to recall the exact cause of this issue but I remember fighting with a friend in our room. I was a strong person and she wasn’t necessarily the sturdiest, so I had the upper hand. This was one of the few times that I had ever fought… actually scratch that, I had fought with my siblings thousands of times. This was but a mere extension or manifestation of my bad behavior.

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Few minutes flew by, my mates decided to stop and report us to the senior students in charge of us. We were assigned punishments for fighting, we served our respective punishments and life went on.

I was bewildered with utmost astonishment and outright confusion when my fellow fight mate came up to me and apologized for getting me angry and instigating the fight. I was simply caught off guard. This was new to me; apologizing after a fight.

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Never in the history of sibling fights, had I or my siblings cared to apologize to one another. It was simply unheard of. The sequence of events that usually followed a fight was; run away to a private place to cool off, get back when you are emotionally settled, and talk like nothing happened.

I didn’t know what to say or let alone how to respond to her. I just stared and sort of awkwardly nodded my head.

This might sound weird but I genuinely thought that people only apologized in movies. I was not aware that people actually apologized to each other in real life. And this was a subconscious thought I didn’t realize was weird till I entered secondary school. I am grateful for this and many more lessons I learnt during my stay there.

There have been moments when I’ve handed out apologies like they were freebies, and sure enough, it always does the trick of silencing the noise or squashing the beef. I think that if you know and believe that you are right and deserve an apology, but the other party has another opinion on it, then just apologize and leave. It doesn’t matter who said sorry.

The only memory coming to mind when I think of ever withholding an apology is a bit silly.

Many years ago _{(emphasis on many years ago, I’m nothing like that now)}, my younger sister and I were making toasted bread for the family for breakfast. Prior to that day, it had been a while since I made toasted bread where as my sister was more familiar with the process.

As the older one, I wanted her to think I knew what I was doing, even though I didn’t 😙😅. So I led the process AKA bossed her around. Now ideally, you should apply some butter on the sides of the bread that would come in contact with the toasting machine, or else it would stick to it, and that’ll make it impossible to bring out the bread in one whole piece.

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She tried to warn me to apply some butter on the outside but I didn’t listen because “how could she possibly know more than me, I’m the older one”. Well guys, guess what happened to the first batch of toasted bread 😅. I ruined them because of my coconut head🙂.

I felt so embarrassed and tried to act cool in front of her but deep down; I knew I should have listened. I also owed her an apology for shunning her idea. And it pains me to say I did not apologize to her.

Over the years I have experienced situations that have taught me lessons about the importance of apologies. They go a long way in deescalating volatile situations and making people feel appreciated. They don’t call it a magic word for nothing!