The year I stopped apologising

Or how midlife is the time to stop with the incessant people pleasing

I have always apologised. When people have shoved me out the way to get to the front at the gig. When they’ve missed their tube because I was dithering and wasn’t sure what direction the tube was heading in and had to double check the sign. I apologised because a boy tried to have sex with me through my tights. I was 16 and we’d gone back to his halls of residence (he was an art student and older,) and he’d climbed on top of me, and had thrust away.

‘I’m sorry that it’s not working,’ I said to him.

He kept going regardless.

I apologised in meetings at work because someone walked in twenty minutes late. And again because the sandwiches had been left out too long and the bread was dry.

If the bus stopped suddenly, and I fell down the stairs, I apologised to the driver.

It was built into my brand DNA (sorry that’s wanky but you know what I mean). I couldn’t stop myself. If my pizza was burnt in a restaurant I apologised. If my cat was sick, I apologised to the vet for taking up their time. To friends for not seeing them enough (usually via text). To the lady who threaded my eyebrows because I’d left them too long and they’d become too hairy.

I always apologised to hairdressers too:

‘This must be my fault because I showed you a picture of Natalie Imbruglia and she’s obviously got an entirely different face to me.’

‘I’m sorry that the bob makes me look like Victoria Wood. It was a daft idea I guess.’

‘I’m sorry this perm is so tight and the ends have burnt off from the extra strong perming solution. I obviously have hair that doesn’t perm well, and you were justified in burning my hair the hell off.’

Then something changed.

Put simply I started noticing the apologising, and I became more discerning. I also realised that when you apologise in an insincere way it means nothing. That over-using the word ‘sorry,’ robs it of meaning. You might as well be saying ‘SpongeBob Squarepants,’ instead. I had actually been doing the emotional equivalent of sticking my fingers in my ears and shouting out - YADA YADA YADA (so perhaps I needed to apologise to all the people I’d ever apologised to?) I realised that I was uncomfortable when things went wrong and my only way to re-set the correct order was to take responsibility.

In fact the things that I REALLY needed to apologise for were bigger things, they were also FAR more uncomfortable things. For instance, I needed to apologise to my step-mum for not being there when she needed me, to my sister for the self-same reason, to my father for ignoring his alcoholism, to both of my parents for being an absolute arse hole for 65% of my entire life, to my ex-boyfriend for running away with someone else, but most importantly to myself. Without getting too sickly sweet, I needed to look under the hood of the apologising, and realise that I truly believed everything was my fault. When it clearly wasn’t always my fault.

It’s interesting how women are made to feel this. It happens even more as a mother. It’s my fault my kids nursery bag isn’t packed with a change of fresh clothes. And that my other kid doesn’t have enough fruit in their packed lunch. It’s also my fault if I get the dates mixed up, and they can’t go to their friend’s party, because I’ve booked for them to do swimming lessons instead. I very recently noticed that the responsibility for stuff going wrong was always laid at my door. And much of the things that went wrong were because I was actually responsible for everything. And nobody else was helping out.

‘Maybe you should ask your dad why you haven’t got fruit in your packed lunch?’ I said recently.

‘But you’re the mum,’ my older daughter interrupted, ‘It IS your fault if things go wrong.’

I tried to explain to her what the patriarchy was, the implications it had for women and how our expectations of men and women were often quite different, because of the power imbalance in society as a whole, but instead went into a long, diatribe about Harvey Weinstein, and why I didn't want her to become an actress in case there were creeps like him around and if she did become an actress then she should never go back to someones room if she felt it was something she had to do to get a role or just to please them.

What I meant to say was was this:

DON’T APOLOGISE FOR ANYTHING UNLESS YOU MEAN IT.

TO MEAN IT YOU NEED TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE THING.

YOU ARE NOT ACTUALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING.

YOU WILL SOMETIMES DROP THE BALL AND THAT OFTEN MEANS YOU ARE BEING HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR TOO MUCH STUFF.

GROWN UP PEOPLE MAKE THEIR OWN CHOICES AND YOU CANNOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE THINGS THEY CHOOSE TO DO.

I wrote all of this down with a view to introducing it into some of our chats. The ones where we don't shout at each other and are both calm (usually five minutes before bedtime).

‘Who’s Harvey Weinstein?’ she asked eager to look him up on my phone.

‘He’s a bad man who abused power to get what he wanted.’

‘And did he apologise?’ she continued.

‘Not that I’m aware of. The people who do really bad stuff rarely do because they believe that nothing is their fault.’

‘You should have double checked the swimming thing though.’

‘True,’ I replied.

I bit the inside of my mouth to stop myself apologising. It’s important that my daughter understands this apologising gene, and how it’s passed down on the female side. I have to lead by example from now on.

So here we go…here is what I really wanted to say…

I actually hate what you’ve done with my hair and never wanted to look like this shit show of a joke. I wanted to look like a French actress and you royally fucked that opportunity up for me.

You burnt my actual hair and I am going to sue you for damages.

I have my fucking tights on and that is why you can’t have sex with me. Did you not learn anything at school?

My cat is sick and you’re paid to look after sick animals. Don’t make me feel bad about how shitty this must be for you okay?