I'm sorry you're the way you are

even though it's not my fault

I’m going to try to make this as short as I can.

You know in primary school, when someone trips and falls, you naturally respond “sorry” because they trained you well at home but your teacher corrects you and says you should always say “take care” as saying sorry implies that you are to blame for the accident. That didn’t always work out for me because I grew up in a country where saying “sorry please excuse me” was normalized.

I grew up in a compound where if an elder farted, you had to say sorry as a child. It felt like a joke, but these character traits stay with you unconsciously. I got into uni, became my person, and realized that it wasn’t just me. I wasn’t the only one with this character flaw so I started trying to unlearn saying “sorry” at every slight opportunity I got.

credit: Zainabxele

Stopping it was hard so I set a more attainable goal of saying “sorry” three times a day at most. It was better than deceiving myself because I knew I wouldn’t stop. I became more conscious and apologized only when necessary and it worked for me. For a while.

My mother became sick two years after I had gotten into uni and I had to take care of her because I was her only grown-up child at that time and I was old enough to understand that I had to do it because nobody else would have done it. I had to leave school most of the time to go and stay in the hospital for days because I didn't want her to feel alone, so she started apologizing for that. It wasn’t her fault that she was sick but she felt like she was disrupting my life by being sick and she didn't fail to apologize every time. Most of our conversations always ended with “I’m sorry, it will soon be over” and it went on like that for over a year till it was finally over.

Unfortunately, I unconsciously picked up the art of apologizing again because I was with someone who apologized for everything including existing. I would go on to apologize for everything including calling people to check up on them. I would go “I’m so sorry to disturb you, I just wanted to check if you’re doing okay” or “I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t catch you at the wrong time. Please, how much do you charge for this service”. It felt wrong but I only realized it after I had done it so I did what normal people wouldn’t do.

I detached. I reduced my conversations with a lot of people who were not my friends. I only responded to questions instead of having actual conversations and I’m sure you know that things like this affects your social interactions and reduces your social currency because I was doing myself a great disservice, I knew this and I was fine with it.

A few weeks ago, I found myself apologizing to a “friend” because I couldn’t make it to his event. I couldn’t make it to the event because my sister was terribly sick and I had to put my entire life on hold to take care of her because I’m the firstborn (read as mother and bank). Only my very close friends knew this and while I expected him to be disappointed about my non-attendance, I wasn’t prepared for the backlash I received. I was hurt because I was being made to feel horrible about not being able to come out and celebrate even when I wasn’t in a celebratory mood. I started to feel some form of resentment and it was mostly because I had to share videos of my sister’s condition with him even though I wasn’t ready to let it get out yet. All of these, so he could calm down and cut me some slack.

I cried after that because of the exhaustion I felt. I was apologetic because life came at me when life was supposed to be the one apologetic for coming at me like that. I shared the last part of this story on Twitter and the interactions I got made me realize that I wasn’t alone. This character trait wasn’t peculiar to me alone and I felt some sort of relief knowing that I wasn’t the only one that apologized for everything.

If like me, you’ve ever had to be sorry for things beyond your control, I just want you to know that it’s okay. You’re not alone in this journey and we’ll one day unlearn this trait.

If you enjoyed reading this, please take a screenshot of your favorite part and post it on your instastory, tag me too 💜

I’ll write to you soon enough.

Your housemate,
Osasbaby

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