I used to apologize for everything. My existence came with a built-in sorry, installed before I could talk that began generations before me, courtesy of a system that needed women small, quiet, and grateful for the privilege of being tolerated. It took me four decades and a lot of unlearning to figure out which apologies were real and which ones were just rent I was paying to stay likable.
I stopped paying and gave out receipts instead.
I stopped apologizing for taking up space. In a conversation, on a page, in a room full of people who liked me better folded up small. I am not an inconvenience. I am not in anyone's way. I was never in anyone's way.
I stopped apologizing for leaving the church. For not believing the thing I was told would save me, taught to me by men who needed my blind belief more than I ever needed their God. Walking out wasn't a tantrum. It was the most honest thing I've ever done.
I stopped apologizing for getting sober and refusing to perform it. No redemption arc, no humble-bragging about my rock bottom for your comfort. Four years clean and I don't owe anyone a tidy story about how broken I used to be. My consistency tells the story for me and doesn’t change on or off the screen, whether someone is watching or not.
I stopped apologizing for not laughing at the joke. The one that wasn't funny, the one that needed my discomfort or the discomfort of others as the punchline, the one I used to giggle through to keep the room easy. The room can be uncomfortable. I survived being the joke. The room can survive me not laughing.
My give-a-fuck’s are gone.
I stopped apologizing for crying when it wasn't convenient, and for not crying when it was expected. My nervous system doesn't perform on cue for an audience that decided in advance what my pain should look like.
I stopped apologizing for being too much. Too loud, too intense, too plugged in to energetic fields and aware of things people would rather I didn't notice. I notice everything. My brain doesn't have an off switch and I'm done pretending it does.
I stopped apologizing for saying no without the long form essay that followed. No is a complete sentence. I spent years writing the codicils nobody read, justifying decisions that were never up for a vote.
I stopped apologizing for charging money for my work. My writing has a price because my time, my research, and my years of unlearning all have a price. Free labor was never love. It was just theft. I have worth and bring value to this ever changing world. What doesn’t resonate today, might in a year. That is estimable.
I stopped apologizing for cutting people off who call honesty cruelty. Boundaries are not violence. The discomfort of being told the truth is not the same thing as harm, and I am done managing other people's feelings about my clarity.
I stopped apologizing for leaving. A house, a town, a role I was handed at birth and forced to wear like bodycon dress. Walking away from something that was killing me slowly is not failure. It's the smartest math I've ever done.
I stopped apologizing for liking my life. For being content, for being in love with my husband out loud, for building something good out of the wreckage and refusing to perform suffering just to make other people feel better about their own.
I stopped apologizing for resting. Rest was never something I had to earn first. I unlearned that lie too.
I stopped apologizing for being loud about things that were supposed to stay behind closed doors. Religion. Money. What happened to me. What's happening to all of us. Silence was never safety, it was just somebody else's strategy to keep their skeletons hidden.
I stopped apologizing for not smiling. My face is not a customer service department.
That's my list. It's not finished, and it's not supposed to be — the whole point is that the list keeps growing every time I catch myself starting a sentence with sorry for something that was never wrong in the first place.
Peace and love to you all…
~Eevie xoxo
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Thank you for being here. Seriously. You make this worth doing.
I like this article very much. Thank you for saying what vaguely existed in the back of my mind, but became clear and solid after reading your article. I left a lot of systems too (parents, church/social network, marriage, and conventional psychiatry practice). After I left them one by one, I felt society's judgment of me as if I had fallen short of what the status quo expected of me. I knew that leaving took enormous integrity, courage, and strength, but a part of me felt like a social pariah, too. Thank you for your insights and powerful message. I appreciate your article.
People often think I'm mad at them when in fact I couldn't give a shit about them - I'm just thinking my own thoughts.
I cut my narcissistic, insufferably egotistical brother off as well as a childhood friend with similar traits. I did the right thing but admidly I sometimes question myself about those decisions. "Sometimes" is happening less and less...
Nice photo of you and your husband.