Today I would like to apologize for being inadvertently unkind to someone.
If you think it’s you, it probably isn’t. If I was unkind to you at some point, and you are expecting a public apology, it could be coming in a future post. I have committed a lot of infractions, and I’m only on apology #6. You should totally send me a message and make sure I am aware of my offense and what sort of priority you think it should receive in my rating system.
No, there isn’t really a rating system…but now that I’ve written it, I kind of like the idea. There could be a list coming. If I could write this shit without actually reading it, things might be better for me. Yes, sometimes it DOES already seem like I don’t read it.
If you would prefer a private apology, please indicate so in your request. I am happy to accommodate special apology orders.
Anyway. On to my apologizing.
Shortly after graduating from High School, I broke up with someone who was very important to me. Someone I loved, but even then I knew we were really not cut out to be lovers. I think he knew it, too.
The reason I gave him was pretty close to the truth: I didn’t want to be such a low priority in his life. I could handle not being in the top four (school, work, music, family), but I was completely unwilling to come after hanging out with his co-workers getting high on any random substance they might get their hands on. Partly because the behavior worried me, partly because I wanted to be more important to him than that.
Not being in the top 5 was unacceptable to me.
That’s pretty much what I said to him. Not unkindly. Not with any real intent to hurt him.
But if I’m totally honest with myself, at the moment I said it, I said it mostly because I was angry. Angry that he’d canceled plans to see me so he could get high. Again. Not that we didn’t see each other a lot, but compared to seeing each other every day it seemed like a big change.
The thing is, I really hadn’t planned on breaking up with him at all. We were both going to be at different colleges in a just a few months anyway. He was staying in Oregon, but I was moving to Boston. All I really needed to do was wait it out, see him a little less often over the Summer and then move to Boston in August and let things sort of fade back into friendship.
There were a couple of incidents that scared me, and if I’d been honest with him I’d have told him that. I don’t think it would have changed things, but maybe it would have slowed him down a little. Maybe, maybe. I know I’m not responsible for anyone else’s trip through life. I’m barely responsible for my own. He chose his own actions, but still, I wonder.
Maybe if it happened now, I’d be wiser. I was certainly not very wise at the advanced age of 17, but then, who is?
Maybe breaking up with him was actually the kinder thing to do than just fading away.
Either way, what I’m sorry for is that I had to hurt him.