Even Though Tomorrow I'll Change My Mind

On the way home tonight I pass by a champagne colored, 90s-ish, Buick/Chevy/sedan/something driven by a tense looking young woman. The car and the young woman are entirely forgettable except for all the I'm Sorrys - bright orange I'm Sorrys written on every window. Nothing more, just I'm Sorry over and over. Obviously a desperate (and no doubt unwelcome) attempt at an apology from what I presume is now an ex-boyfriend. I imagine this outburst was preceded by hundreds of unreturned emails, phone calls and texts. There were probably a few late night visits to her door. Maybe even some calls to her best friend to plead his case. Obviously the young woman wouldn't hear it. Wouldn't answer. She's deleted him from her iPhone, her email contacts and her Facebook. She is DONE with him. So he steps it up a notch, or fifty. He forces her to deal with him by painting her car with his grief, splashing his desperation publicly and maybe even permanently. She's humiliated. When she walked out of work to go home the words burned into her, twisting the pain deeper, and now she's driving straight to the car wash hoping for washable bright orange paint. He doesn't know it yet but this last ditch effort has merely driven her further away from him.

I smirk thinking only an idiot would go to such lengths. Thinking there's no way such desperation could ever win her back. Duh. She's strong and confident. She knows she deserves better. But as I drive, my thoughts towards him begin to soften. This poor guy is trying to make amends. Trying to move forward. Trying to heal something terribly broken. No matter what went wrong, he’s trying to make it right.

He is sorry.


My old self has started quietly resurfacing - scattered emails from fans of my first book, old friends who ask what I'm working on these days, questions about my "writing career" (ha!) and what my new book is about. I usually stutter and stammer and say something sarcastic, unsure of how to respond, how to explain these past few years in a casual reply. The only thing that comes to mind is I'm Sorry.

I'm Sorry to my old life, the life where the words flowed out of me. Back when I had something to say. Back when my general disposition was hilariousness and fun. Back when I was on the brink of being a real writer.

I'm Sorry that I lost my publishing deal and then sort of drifted for a while. I'm Sorry I wasn't able to get my crap together. Sorry that my blog is boring. Sorry I don't write hilarious and poignant words that continue to get better instead of slowly getting worse.

But before I take a spray paint can to my heart and declare that GEEZ I'M SORRY ALREADY, I have an announcement.

I'm.
Not.
Sorry.

Sure, my life hasn't gone the way I believed it would and, dare I say it, maybe not even the way it should have gone. Things have happened that have stunned me silent. The course of my life shifted and I never did regain my balance. I’ve blathered on and on about some of these things to no end. No real writing, just a general “life sucks” every couple weeks. But all in all, I’m still here. I've survived. Am surviving.

And I've decided that I'm not going to care anymore. I’m not going to care what the words are; just let them come as they will. I’m going to read again without the pressure to write. Write again without the pressure to perform. Be who I am instead of worrying about who I could have been.