I love that they offer that. Today was juice and donuts served by some volunteering dads. We can bring board games and sit and take some special time with our kids. They have one for dads too and I think it's a neat way to celebrate one another.
It was so fun to be there this morning and see so many moms I know. I feel completely settled in this community and it's home now. It's an amazing feeling to be in a place where I have roots and to know I am loved and have many families I love dearly.
As we were filing out of the cafeteria, the halls were full of moms and children, and I began to listen. The word I kept hearing come out of the Mothers was "sorry." Over and over and over again. As Mothers pulled children to their chest and out of the way of others, as Moms walked through a conversation, as they bumped their kids while moving through the tight hall space, as they merely moved through life.
I went to the grocery store afterwards and three different times women crossed in front of me and said 'sorry'. Not, 'excuse me', or 'pardon me', but 'I'm sorry'.
My heart is so heavy over this. Why are we women programmed so well to apologize simply for existing?! Why are we so quick to dismiss our very presence as though it might be offensive to others? Why have we been conditioned to quickly look down, or minimize our footprint on this earth in order to make space for others? Why can't we capture the syllables before they slip through our lips and pull the word back into ourselves to burn?
I do it too. My dad has gotten after me for years for apologizing for everything under the sun. As a woman who has strong empathy instincts and who has been a codependent for so many years, I have learned to feel responsible for everyone's emotional well being within a hundred square miles of myself. If I think my personal being, or words, or actions have offended or upset someone in any way, I am very quick to offer them my apologies, and work hard to smooth the way for them while often chipping away at my own well being. I've gashed out pieces of my own soul to try desperately to make sure others were whole. I've lost myself in an ocean of sadness, anger and resentment because I began to feel that I wasn't seen. And yet I'm learning that I made myself small. Invisible. I minimized the very creature God created me to be in the fear that I might make someone else uncomfortable. I became a very skilled chameleon in that I would adjust my behavior quickly in order to soothe those around me. When I wasn't able to fix it, I would apologize, and bathe in guilt and shame that I wasn't good enough to make others ok.
I'm tired of apologizing for myself. In fact, I'm beginning to believe that it's an affront to my God. To not fully lean into who I have been designed to be is instead denying the world the very thing I was put here to do. Only I can be the best me. Only I can do what I was created to do. And by sheer statistics, there will be people I annoy, anger, frustrate and confuse. My job isn't to fix that for them. My job is only to 'To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with my God.'
Listen to your words. Hear the places you take ownership by apologizing where it isn't necessary. Start to stop that word from spilling out like bitter water. Show our daughters that that word needn't be at the top of the vocabulary list. Smile at women who apologize for themselves and tell them 'no apology necessary'. I want to stop shrinking and start being. I'm only sorry it's taken me this long.
