PROGRESS REPORT: B minus

Those of you who have been following my blog know that a) I made a New Year's Resolution to stop saying "sorry" and b) my child likes to chew on garbage. I'm happy to report that a) my resolution has been going well so far and b) I am headed to Bed, Bath, and Beyond today to get a garbage can with a lid.

Regarding point A, I have a few updates for you. Here is what I have learned so far:

1) There are other ways to word certain social niceties, like saying "sorry" when you do that awkward "who's walking which way on the sidewalk" dance with a stranger. "Excuse me" works perfectly well.*

2) There are even other words for expressing condolences ("I'm so sad to hear of your loss").

3) Sometimes (I have realized), I apologize for things that are actually good for other people or the human race. "Oh, sorry I moved that breakable object of yours out of the way of two rambunctious babies" makes no sense! I SHOULD be saying, "That's right. I moved that object so it wouldn't get broken into a trillion pieces. You're fuckin' welcome!" My new motto is going to be "you're fuckin' welcome."

4) I definitely heard "sorry" come out of my mouth at least four times over the past two days (down from seventeen! Progress!) and kicked myself and told myself loudly to do better. BUT, I also had a marked success. After I saw online that Stanford won the Rose Bowl (which I admittedly was only looking up in the first place because if the game was over than that meant Ethan might be on his way back to relieve me of primary parenting duties), I said casually to my BFF's husband, whose house I was staying at, "So, Stanford won, huh?" At which point he looked me directly in the eye and said, "I was Tivo-ing that game."

Major, major oops. MAJOR OPPORTUNITY FOR REBECCA TO SAY "SORRY." Normally, I would have said sorry at least four times. Maybe five. I had ruined the game for him... hadn't I? Well, I thought about it. I thought about what I WOULD have said, pre-resolution. And instead of saying "I'm so sorry!", I said, rather robotically because it was so freaking hard for me: "Oops. My bad. I had no idea. Guess you'll never have us visit again." And then I proceeded to run the whole exchange over and over again in my head for twenty minutes, wasting a whole lot of mental energy. But I was tortured. What if he was mad? Annoyed? What if he thought I DIDN'T CARE THAT HE WAS MAD OR ANNOYED? And I decided in that moment that I couldn't say to him, "Normally I would say sorry, but I can't right now" because that would totally be cheating. The whole point of this experiment is for me to deal with the consequences of not relying on my crutch. If I use the crutch, even backhandedly, it doesn't count.

Later that night, after I was able to get some perspective on the incident and realize (duh) that nobody was going to de-friend me on FB because I ruined a football game of a school he didn't even GO to, I proudly told my friend that I had successfully censored myself from apologizing, and (after messing with me for thirty seconds which I totally deserved), he gave me a mental high-five. So there you have it. I did it. I succeeded. And I felt just a tad bit awesome. I still have so far to go that I should definitely not be calling myself awesome yet. But... baby steps. I give myself a B-minus for the week. And that's probably generous, honestly. But if I get less than a B I freak out.

xo,
Rebecca

*I know that these use cases aren't really my worst offenses. EVERYONE says "sorry" at some point, so is it so bad, you might ask, to say "sorry" if you bump into somebody? YES, if you are me. I'm an addict. I have to go to an extreme or this is never going to work.