Dear Neighbor,
It’s the New Year and time to make those resolutions. According to Forbes Magazine, the five most popular resolutions for 2023 were: lose weight (41%), improve mental health (39%), improve diet (35%), improve finances (33%) and improve fitness (32%).
I read list after list of resolutions (thank you, Google®), but somehow, none of them quite hit the mark....
We’ve all been there, scribbling on December 31, with an abundance of hope and a dash of delusion, promises that we’ll be a better version of ourselves next year.
Growing up Catholic, I made my first confession in the second grade. I was seven, the age of moral reasoning. While no saint, I was a pretty good kid and, to appease the priest (an act of kindness!), I scoured the “Examination of Conscience” everyone in my class at St. Dominic’s received and milked it for all it was worth. Lying is a sin, so I said I’d lied several times. The truth (hah!) is that I’d lied once — telling the priest that I’d lied. He forgave my sins and gave me penance, probably a few prayers (a full rosary for the real hooligans). That was little Dorothy.
The adult Dorothy has discovered that real penance is provided by one’s conscience.
Recently I was at a large gathering of old friends — so large that our group took up three long tables in the restaurant, end-to-end, making for a fun, lively evening, yet impossible to connect meaningfully with everyone. As the evening wound down, now standing, we mingled with those not near us while seated. The topics were random, and I jumped in with a fresh-mouth comment — the kind that many people might find funny, but not one of the few people I was talking to. She gently called me out, and immediately I realized what an idiot I can be, that the “joke” I’d made was boorish — as they say, it’s funny only if everybody’s laughing. A kind of deafness, Dorothy in exuberant, carried-away party mode.
I apologized abundantly, she said to not worry — no big deal, we hugged and left it at that. But I did worry. Something just didn’t sit right with me.
A few days later I called her, begging forgiveness (I know begging is sort of over the top, but that’s really how I felt), declaring that my big mouth should be sewn shut and the thought of offending her and damaging our friendship — she’s one of the kindest, most generous, loved and admired people I know — sickened me.
Ever gracious, she assured me that she thought what I said actually was funny, that she, too, makes comments that make her children (this younger generation is ever so much more politically correct than we) roll their eyes to the point where ocular surgery is needed to get them back. I told her the thought of harming our friendship broke my heart.
My friend insisted that we were good, no need to self-flagellate any longer. (She was right, I was.) I said thank you with tears in my eyes, we hung up, and I was floating on air, happily assured that yes, we were indeed good.
Next year I want to apologize with the other person in mind, so that my apologies are both an acceptance of the nuttiness and frailties of the human species (moi included) but more important of the wonderful value of someone I love and of our relationship. I realized apologies are a standing up for another person against ourselves, our own pettiness, thoughtlessness, even cruelty — yes, I’ve been there, too. This kind of apology makes us stronger, connecting us back to humankind. Apologies make us flexible, to be able to see that we are wrong, encouraging humility, always a good thing in opinionated folks that gets us out of the “I’m right; you’re wrong” mental habit so easy to slip into. Apologies remind us of how much we care, an affirmation of our hearts.
In the end, all we can really claim with pride are the depth of our relationships, the ones we’ve cultivated, honed, stuck with through thick and thin. Invariably, apologies are going to be a part of this journey. And forgiveness. A genuine apology all but pretty much guarantees forgiveness. (If it doesn’t, alas, maybe there is something wrong, off key with the friendship after all.) And I know this because I’ve been on both sides of that coin, and richer in each instance.
Well, that’s it, folks. Happy New Year and happy resolution-making, finding the ones that suit you best for this new year and with any luck make 2024 a happier, richer and more complete year for you.
— Dorothy
