Please Forgive Me, I Do*

*(queues up Anita Baker)

There was this one time, that an ex and I had to be in the same place at the same damn time and it almost went very well, which means it was actually awful and there were so many reasons why. *queues up EWF*

Those weren’t the reasons at all though. At least not for me. I had made my peace with what we were and weren’t by that time. So many years had passed. There had been so much to misunderstand, and even more silence to miss it with. One thing lingered though.

An apology. In all of it, he never apologized. And I really needed it. Hell, being honest, I still need that ‘ish. And it’s not like I am looking for heartfelt (or other felt) apologies from the people who have come and gone. It would behoove many of them to never reach my wavelength again. But because of who we are, and what we were, I seem to need it so much, if we are ever to be anything again.

I know, I know. In the words of Pop’s: I got issues. (I’m not working on them, in case you were wondering. That sounds too much like right.) But there was point I was looking for.

Courtesy of my feelings and IG: @22visionary

So, this one day, I was looking around on the internets and ‘webs minding all yall business and came across this: We talk a lot about the apologies we’ll never receive. What about the ones we’ll never be able to offer?

I have been (not) waiting for his and other apologies for so long, that I never thought about the apologies I have been holding on to. I mean, it’s not like I’ve left a cobblestone path of transgressions or anything in my past, but it’s just that, one or two people might wanna hear me admit some of the ain’t shit things I’ve done – whether I intended them or otherwise.

I don’t know how to live like this in a world where the things I really want are the things I really need to do. But here’s a valiant attempt (beginning chronologically because I ain’t got a mental health professional on retainer to fix me once I admit the recent stuff):

When I was in 8^th grade (or around that age) I had a boyfriend for like two days. Okay, maybe three days. Let’s just agree that it was not even a week. Anyway, this arrangement was made between he and I, so like, only the people in our locus knew about it. Which means it was perfect, because there was no way on this side of Jordan’s River that I was going to tell my Daddie about it.

Until the day the young man came to my house to see me. Not as a kid coming to play with the other kids who lived in my home, but as a suitor – a boyfriend coming to see his girlfriend.

I panicked yall. I looked out the window and made a decision. Inside is good. Stay there. Whatever you do, don’t go outside. Salvation could have been waiting for me on the other side of the front door, and I would have condemned myself to everlasting damnation. Which is basically what I did.

We broke up. Not because we talked about it, or one of us communicated to the other that the relationship was over on a note passed between friends. I literally never went back outside, which was a big deal. This was the 90’s yall – we LIVED for being outside. I died.

It seems a small thing to apologize for. (This is me, apologizing.) But it’s a big thing. A huge thing. It was the foundation for my entire life as a woman attempting to authentically engage in a relationship. I never did. Not once. In all my loving somebody’s son, not one of those sons met my father. I was never brave enough to stand before my Daddie and profess my love/infatuation/care/misguided-lust for the man I entertained at the time.

I apologize. A LEO is supposed to be brave, supposed to have courage. Jesus didn’t die on the cross to see me out here simpin’ but here I am. I saved none of that courage, none of that bravery, none of it for the men who came to eventually pass. I wish I knew the why. I suppose I wondered what tragic thing would (not) of happened if I had introduced a then boyfriend to my always father. What would Daddie of said (or not) to them? What would have changed in my relationship with Daddie? Being Daddie’s girl seemed *subconsciously because, like I had real-time awareness of this?* more important than being that man’s woman, so maybe it just made sense to keep both those lives separated? Who can know such things in such times that these are?

It doesn’t feel good to offer that. Probably the reason why I never did it. I’m not trying to clear the skeletons in my closet. I’ve made adequate space for them and all my shoes. It’s just, I know what having that apology would have meant for me that day, and well, I’ve got enough baggage of my own to be in 2019 holding on to something for which I have little use.

Now I asked yall to close the gate at Iyanla’s house. Who left one of her window’s open??

I clearly need new people.