so ….. you’re pregnant: a guide to telling your childless loved one the news

I found out on Friday I’m going to be an aunt again. The Banshees will have a little brother or sister. While I know I will eventually be happy to have a new nephew or niece, the day that news comes is always hard. Friday was hard. Bittersweet and sobby. The separation I feel from the rest of society is never more pronounced than at the precise moment that news is shared. A few people got delightful spewing emails from me that I’m sure only cemented me in their hearts as a source of real joy and sunshine. So that was Friday. Today is better.

Over the years, I’ve had people tell me they’re pregnant many many many times. Family, friends. And over the years, based on these experiences, good and bad, I’ve developed some pretty set ideas about what to say/what not to say when you’re announcing your pregnancy to a childless (not by choice) woman. Some of these might carry over for a single woman or, really, to any woman who has experienced grief and longing in this area. These are based on my personal reactions to various approaches, obviously, but I hope there is a carryover for other women as well.

Let’s walk through it. You find out you’re pregnant. You need to tell Betty, a childless friend/relative who you know struggles with that reality.

~ First, understand Betty is happy for you, most likely. Unless you’re some kind of ass-y, bitchy figure in her life, she IS happy for you. It’s just that in that moment, she is so so SAD for herself. Please understand. Betty’s sorrow is heavy and should be respected. It weighs much much more than your joy. I’m sorry. It’s just true. It’s a lifetime sorrow. Try to understand that fact going into your announcement. If you’re the praying type, ask for divine sensitivity. I ain’t kidding with that.

~ Do try not to be a douchebag. If you’re normally a douche, pray that God will give you 5 minutes of non-douche to break through your usual loathesome persona. If it works, perhaps Betty will never like you more than she does in those 5 minutes. Handle it well, and she may say, “Wow. Slappy was briefly so much less repugnant.” Really, it could be your chance to gain some sensitivity points.

~ Consider asking yourself: Am I the right person to tell Betty? That might sound weird, but maybe Betty would take the news better if it came to her indirectly. For instance, if you know Betty’s husband or your husband knows the husband, perhaps you can share the news with Betty’s husband and he can tell Betty. It may very well be easier for Betty to hear it privately from her husband. She won’t feel on the spot to have just the right cheery reaction for you. She can cry if she wants or needs to. (Assuming the relationship with hubby is good and she feels free to be herself.) If not a husband, perhaps someone closer to her than you are can deliver the news to Betty. Tell the intermediary to say, “Polly Pregnant thought it might be easier to hear it from me.” This makes you sound sensitive, you see. If you’re Betty’s best friend, I assume you’d know her well enough to know just how to announce this news.

~ Another approach is an email. Write the news briefly. Don’t apologize for being pregnant. That sounds disingenuous. Please.

~ Do acknowledge — no matter which venue you choose — that you know it might be hard for her, but that you love her, that you can’t wait for your new little one to know her. Stuff like that. Betty needs to be soothed in that moment, so take ONE moment out of your months of nesting and expectant bliss to make it about another person who has not been blessed in this area. That one moment can go a long way in your relationship — in either a positive or negative direction. STRIVE to make it positive.

~ In both of the above scenarios — the indirect approach, the email approach — the goal is to allow Betty the dignity of a private response. She’s not on the phone with you, trying to hide the choke in her voice, which is what happened to me on Friday. You’re not in her face where it’s even harder for her to hide that she’s struggling. She loves you, okay, but DAMN, she’s just struggling. Don’t make her pain worse. Don’t humiliate her with your expectations that she will smile and laugh and jump up and down.

~ Don’t talk about how excited you are in that moment. That’s a given. Betty knows that. There are others you can share your excitement with.

~ Don’t pee on the stick, get the results, and immediately call Betty. You’re too excited. I mean, good grief, call your husband or someone you KNOW will be as excited as you are. You need to be more measured if you’re going to approach Betty in person or on the phone, okay? Calm down before you contact her.

~ Don’t mention God. Do not. I don’t care if Betty is a fellow believer. Do not do it. Telling Betty what God did for you to get you pregnant is no freaking bueno, okay? The news on Friday came with “Well, we were undecided about trying for a third, but I guess God decided it for us.” No. No. No. I started to crack into pieces. Not good. This is not to say that God isn’t involved in getting people pregnant. This IS to say that now is not the time to mention him. If you do decide to go douche and mention him, just know that Betty will feel that God does not love HER as much as he loves YOU which makes no sense to her because, uhm, you’re such a douche.

~ Okay. So today is only a little bit better.

~ Don’t say, “Oh, this was totally a whoops/accident/surprise.” This is another moment from Friday, but I’ve heard it from others, too. Seriously. Don’t say it. Just how badly do you want to destroy this person you allegedly love with your news? She’s struggling with childlessness and you’re pregnant with an easy “whoops”? Are you made of stone?

~ Again, understand that you will need to think through what you say. It’s only seconds/moments for you, but Betty, unfortunately, will never forget how you tell her the news. She wishes she could forget it, but ….. she can’t. Think, think, think.

~ For the love of God, don’t bitch along these lines: money’s tight, the timing’s bad, I don’t want to get fat, I’m getting too old to be a new mom/dad (if the baby daddy, i.e. Betty’s brother, is delivering the news to Betty), blahdie blah blah. Basically, don’t bitch to Betty about your expectant worries. She’d be thrilled to have your worries. Again, there are others you can share your anxieties with.

~ Another thought: It might not be a bad idea to wait until you’re past the first trimester to tell Betty. Many people choose to wait until then to announce their pregnancy anyway, but the benefit to Betty is, frankly, she doesn’t have to sit with the information for so long. Do that, and there are 6 as opposed to nearly 9 months of knowing about your pregnancy and having to put on a happy face. The idea should be to minimize her pain in whatever area you can. This is one of them.

~ On the other hand, a friend told me she was pregnant several months ago and told me I was the first one she told, even before her family. THAT made me feel special. It was the opposite of the thought above, yes, but it was done with so much love and with an added level of “I think you are special. I set you aside to be the first person I told.” I’m tearing up now just thinking about that. (Thank you, sarahk.)

~ If Betty and her husband are still in trying-to-conceive mode, don’t say, “I’m sure it’s gonna happen for youuu” or some other variation of this theme. Betty hates that.

~ MEN: If you cheated on your wife with a stripper and wooed her into bed several months later, getting her pregnant with your stripper-cheatin’ sperm, don’t tell Betty, “Phhew. Guess I get to stay married now. It’s like a resurrection baby or something.” Betty will kill you and the jury will acquit her. Okay. Hm. That’s a really specific scenario. (But, yes. I actually had a man say this to me. Husband of a woman I knew.)

~ But on that note, less specific, is this: Don’t go around proclaiming that this baby has some kind of spiritual symbolism in your life — not to Betty anyway. Perhaps you believe that’s true. Honestly, I really don’t care, and neither does Betty. I mean, great. It’s the “resurrection baby” or whatever, but time and place, peaches. Time and place. You don’t have to share everything. Beyond that, placing some kind of symbolism onto the conception of this child is a LOT of pressure for that baby. Sheesh.

~ The best announcement comes from someone who can imagine, however briefly, what it’s like in Betty’s shoes. Someone with empathy. If you don’t have that, well, you probably don’t know you don’t have that because you don’t have that, so that’s a problem. Unfortunately, you’ll run Betty over with the information without thinking and leave her flattened and sobbing and then wonder why you don’t hear from her for months. So if you announce your pregnancy to a childless woman like Betty and you don’t hear from her for months afterward, guess what? You’re probably a callous douche. Take the very broad hint. Don’t get mad at Betty. Don’t sit around pouting, “That beyotch Betty. How come she doesn’t want to hear about my barfing/swelling/cravings?” Becauuuse ….. you screwed it up, that’s why. Pick up the phone and talk to her about it. Apologize for being a cow if you need to, and take that as a lesson that you need more empathy. Tell yourself you’ll do better next time and DO BETTER NEXT TIME. Or, alternatively, have your tubes tied, your wee wee snipped, so you don’t have to announce a pregnancy badly ever again.

~ Think of a way to show Betty some extra love. You’re being hugely blessed with something that she desperately wants. Maybe …. oh, call her a few days later and ask her to lunch. (And talk about things other than the baby, unless she asks.) Send her a book you know she’ll love. Get her a gift card for her favorite store. Don’t do it right at that moment. Don’t say, “I’m pregnant, and since I knew this would be hard for you, here’s a gift card to Pottery Barn.” No, you weenie. Don’t do THAT. Wait a few weeks or so. You just want to express your love for her, okay? Especially if she’s been gracious about your news. Let me tell you, that took something out of her. It cost her something, that graciousness. So think of some way to celebrate how much you love her with some small kindness on your end. She IS going to love your baby, and that will cost her something too. She’ll never tell you directly; no, she won’t. She’ll love your baby and play with your baby and she will cry on the way home after seeing your baby. Because she loves you and your baby. Understand that it costs her things she will never tell you and celebrate that you have such a friend.

theme yurts for the syc

I’m trying to remember how it became the “Sudden” Yurt Commune. I think something someone said in one of the early posts about it? While it was still just a twinkle in my eye? I don’t remember, but I know that phrase is out there.

I hit on an idea in the comments of the post below:

We need theme yurts in the SYC. I don’t like the word “theme,” really, because it sounds like Disneyland or something and the SYC is WAY cooler than Disneyland, but I can’t think of another word here. “Theme” also makes me think of “A Christmas Story” and Ralphie’s teacher: I want you to compose ……… a theme! I will think of a better name. I will!

Anyhoo. (I stole that word from Sheila. I totally did. I’m sorry, Sheila.)

The idea would be this: Each member of the SYC — and our membership requirements are very rigorous; you’re a member if you WANT to be a member — can choose for himself or herself a yurt that they host. It’s that person’s baby. Yes, it’s true that in the comments of the post below, I became all despotic, as is my nature, and ASSIGNED a rock ‘n’ roll yurt to Cullen and NF, which they do not have to do. Not at all. Just an idea.

BUT …. I think it would be cool for people to host a yurt that features something they’re passionate about and we can all come and “hang out” in there. Maybe Sheila would do a movie yurt. Jayne would do a cooking yurt. Sarahk would do the gun-toting yurt. Kate P would do a YA yurt. Brian would do the Photoshop yurt, because he has mad skillz. See? Something like that. Something that you’re passionate about, something that you can teach or just share with others. For instance, mine would be the Liam Neeson yurt or the Sweeney Todd yurt or the pouring water on the movie theater seat yurt, for instance, since these are the consuming passions of my life. (The ideas above are NOT demands, just ideas.)

Honestly, I’m hoping for a crochet yurt. I started learning several years ago, stopped doing it, but I really liked it and I need me some instruction, pippa!

These “theme” (argh) yurts — “specialty” yurts?? (ARGH )– can be of your own choosing. Both the theme and the look of it. Yes, I’m the benevolent dictator of the SYC, but these would be yours to do with whatever you wish and we’d all reap the benefits of your expertise and talent! Hurrah!!

It would be so cool if we could add to our gallery of photos in the SYC category. There’s some neat stuff at the SYC. Going through all those photos makes me happy.

So if you’d like to create your own theme/specialty/better word to come yurt, announce it in the comments, please oh please. If you have time to do some Googling and find a picture of a yurt you fancied for your specialty yurt, I would LOVE it if you posted a link to it in the comments so I could upload it to the SYC category in the sidebar with your description of it. Or draw one. Or Photoshop one. Whatever. It’s your wizard master crackerjack passion hotshot something yurt.

Can’t wait to hear what your yurts will be. Describe in as much detail as you wish. I need this happy place right now.

So let’s do some work on the SYC.

And pictures, crackie! Picturrrres!!

so what? i like her

She’s Orianthi and, yes, I like her.

Plus, I think she rips that guitar UP. But I need Cullen to tell me if she does. If he says she doesn’t, then, clearly, I am done with her.

Although I will still continue to work out to these songs. But with contempt then, of course. Contempt will drip from every word I sing at the top of my lungs.

Ooh, at about 3:20 in the video below, I was on sheer tenterhooks as to how it would end! Nailbiting suspense, pippa!

In the one below, she has a purty sparkly guitar. I need Cullen to explain what’s going on with the guitar in the foreground because it doesn’t look to be what she’s playing, but maybe it is. I really don’t know. So … is that cool or just weird?

The red eye of Sauron is making me insecure. I need non red-eyed people to tell me what to think. As usual.

Oh, but check her out at about 2:12-2:27.

the thing the eye doctor did

I’m at the eye doctor’s today. A new eye doctor for me. I’m there because one half of my left eye is blood red and zombie scary and has been that way for two weeks. I decided I needed to see someone once I started wearing my sunglasses in the bathroom so I didn’t have to look at myself and then in bed, so MB didn’t have to look at me. Don’t look at me! I’m a hideous monster! I’m a plague of Egypt!

Last week, I didn’t even go to The Banshee’s little recital because I didn’t want to traumatize her with Super Gross Tee Tee or give her anything that would make her become Super Gross Banshee and then blame Super Gross Tee Tee.

The eye doctor is balding and short and has an ominous demeanor. Meaning, there are just too many pregnant pauses between his words for me to believe that the end of the world — or my eye — is not imminent. He swings the Viewmaster thingie in front of my face and tells me to place my chin in the chin stirrup with the little disposable tissues. Never know what dread disease someone else’s chin may give you. Trapped this way, I have nothing else to do but “stare straight” as he says, right into the cavern of his left nostril, and wait for him to finish a damn sentence, for the love of God.

“Well, it looks like …….”

“What?”

“…………..”

He’s still looking through the Viewmaster.

“Is it bad?”

“…………………………”

He is enthralled by the Viewmaster.

Good God, man! Just hurry up and tell me I’m gonna die because of my zombie eye!

“There seems to be an inflammatory process ………”

Really? What gave it away? I mean, it wasn’t the hideous redness, was it??

“So what does that mean?”

“………………………………………”

He doesn’t answer. He just does the weird thing. Or, rather, the weirder thing.

He pushes the Viewmaster away from my face, takes a little light, and shines it into my red eye of Sauron.

Oh, but that’s not the weirder thing.

No. The weirder thing is this:

He touches his forehead to my forehead while he shines the little light into my red eye of Sauron.

He touches his forehead to my forehead.

Without telling me, “I am now going to touch my forehead to your forehead,” he touches his forehead to my forehead.

Sure. It’s not, “I am now going to insert this frozen speculum into your frightened vagina,” but a little heads up about the forehead thing would be nice. This is not a date. To me, anyway.

He’s holding my head loosely to shine this light, but I don’t feel I can pull away and maybe this is all perfectly normal and I’m a paranoid baby, but he’s close enough for me to start counting the gray hairs in his mustache. He’s close enough for any number of things that I would label more “pervy felon” than “eye doctor.” The lights are off in the room and it’s all just a teensy bit creepy.

I am literally planning “a move.”

If you get any closer to me, dude, which I actually don’t think is possible, I am taking my knee and ramming it into your crotch and I will walk outta here still with my plague eye but you will walk out of here with a brand new plague penis. Talk about your inflammatory process, Slappy. You have mere seconds to get the hell offa me. I am not kidding.

After about 20 of the longest seconds of my life, he stops touching his forehead to my forehead, thank God, and I can once again live my life as an independent entity — and, you know, not a conjoined twin.

I believe in the future, I will be taking my red eye of Sauron, should it ever rise again, elsewhere.

the stop-traffic phenomenon

You know how sometimes you’re standing there on the side of the road, waiting to cross the street, and a random car will stop and let you cross?

Yeah. You’ve had people do that for you, right? And you’ve done that for people too, right?

Uhm, please forgive me but …. I hate that. I do, and I think my reason for hating it is shameful and trivial and yet I still HATE it.

Sometimes, the car that stops is stopping a whole line of traffic behind him just to let you cross. Sometimes, there’s just that one car, not another car in sight behind him, and it’s just a matter of two seconds before he moves past and you’re able to cross the street.

So why stop? Why?

You know, I’m bothered by how much I elevate the trivial to the monumental and I’m also bothered by how that still doesn’t stop me from sharing. So, eh, let’s just proceed. I mean, I’ve already thrown myself under the bus, so let’s just roll it over me completely.

I imagine for the stoppers, the impulse is just a knee-jerk benevolence. They see someone waiting, they want to help, to make things easier for you, to feel good about themselves for the gesture. One or all of those, I guess. So what’s my problem?

A few Saturdays ago, MB headed out of town early on business, so I woke up and walked alone to a favorite coffeehouse a few blocks away. I have to cross a fairly busy two-way street to get there. The street has a median, so you cross to the median, look both ways, cross to the sidewalk. I mean, duh, Streetcrossing 101, right? On the way back with my coffee in hand, I stood on the median waiting for traffic to clear so I could cross. Since I know I have this weird and basically stupid issue, I did what I frequently do: turned my head AWAY from oncoming traffic to effect, oh, a nonchalant air. To ensure I didn’t look needy. To send the message, “Oh, I’m totally not paying attention, so you don’t NEED to stop for me.”

Several seconds later came the honk. I glanced towards traffic and, yep, seated high up in his semi-truck was a fellow waving me across the street. Maybe he had a good view of my cleavage from there. I mean, I was wearing a scooped top, but not THAT scooped. I don’t know. The basics of life elude me, as evidenced daily by this blog. I only know he created HUGE clog of busy traffic behind him just to allow me to cross. I felt my face turn red, crossed quickly, waved at him, and felt like a jerk the rest of the way home because I was irritated by a good deed.

Seriously. WHAT IS MY PROBLEM?

I think it’s this: I don’t like to feel beholden to the stranger in the car or the truck or the semi-truck. It embarrasses me, that sudden attention. Makes me self-conscious. Makes me feel guilty about the traffic bunched up behind the stopper. I’m just minding my business, perfectly happy to wait until the coast is clear, and someone’s goodwill suddenly becomes a problem for meeeee. It’s irrational, I know, but it bugs me. I feel as if a thank-you wave is insufficient. I feel as if I have to hurryuphurryup because I don’t want to make them sit there and say, “Oh, look at her, strrrrolling across. Well, no good deed goes unpunished, blahdie blah.” Sometimes, I DO just want to strrroll across the street and that’s why I’m perfectly happy to wait for traffic. And, honestly, sometimes if it’s a man …. well, I question why he’s doing it. I do. Please forgive me, menfolk. Most of the time, I employ my “look the other way” tactic and at least 50% of the time, it still doesn’t work. Someone stops, honks to call your attention to their good-deed doing, and then I feel forced to comply so they can complete their good deed. Maybe I don’t want to be an accomplice to their good deed. Maybe I just want to strrrroll in peace, at my leisure. I suppose I could wave them past, but I’ve never tried that. I don’t think I could. I think that would make me a (bigger) jerk. But sometimes …. sometimes …. and here is the dreck of my personality on glorious display ….. I feel as if the person in the car is saying, “I’m doing a good deed! Cross the street, dammit! CROSS!” So I across the street so they can feel good about themselves and possibly stare at the chest whilst I spill my coffee all over it. And maybe that’s the goal. We can’t rule that out. I don’t know.

I am now bugged that people do nice things.

So, basically, the crankiness has become metastatic.

snippet

For reasons I can’t explain — or rather, won’t — the phrase/song of the week has been:

“Her burp cloth brings all the boys to the yard.”

I blame MB. It’s his fault. As usual.

sorry seems to be ….

The whole psychology of the apology is interesting to me. Why people do it, why they don’t (duh), HOW people do it, how they mess it up, how to do it right. I’ve talked about this a lot on the blog in the past. I tend to think the apology as a social convention and spiritual necessity is on its way out. People generally think they’re right at all times. I understand that. I generally think I’m right at all times. And because we generally think we’re right at all times, we don’t want to apologize because that would mean we’re actually admitting we’re wrong and then what oh what will happen to our view of ourselves that we are generally right at all times? It messes with our head. But the extent to which it messes with our heads is tied, I think, to just how much our sense of self is invested in believing we are right at all times. The greater we’re defined by our own “rightness,” the more likely we are to feel diminished by an apology and, therefore, the less likely we are to actually apologize. Or the more likely we are to offer a non-apology apology which gives the illusion of hitting the mark but is really a psychological sleight of hand.

I’m about to copy and paste my own final comment in the now-infamous “Kevin” thread, which makes me look both needy and self-important and, well, I have to plead mea culpa on that. Whatevs. But I want to talk about an “apology” he gave at one point in that …. discussion? diatribe? harangue? Whatever that whole dealio actually was. I may look like I’m throwing him under the bus, but Kevin basically threw himself under the bus with no assist from me or anyone else. I’ve banned him now — if it actually worked, since I think he’s at least occasionally using an anonymous proxy to surf the Net — and he won’t be commenting here again, so I think it’s safe to discuss this as a case study, so to speak. I made the choice to ban him because I don’t want to have the kind of blog I think Kevin WANTS me to have. I don’t want to come on my blog and argue in the round every stinkin’ day. That’s just not who I am. Some people like that, are even energized by it. Not me. I just get dizzy and nauseous after a while.

Here’s what I said in my last comment on that thread. (Oh, and sarahk weighed in with a great comment at the very end.)

You know ….. another thing that’s stuck in my craw over this is what I call Kevin’s non-apology apology. (I’ve talked about the non-apology apology before on the blog.)

Way up in comment #29, Kevin said:

/Tracey, I’m sorry if my comment came across as condescending./

See that? The dropping of the “if” bomb in that “apology”? No. That’s not an actual apology. An apology is taking sincere, honest ownership of what you said or did and not qualifying it IN ANY WAY. The ever-popular “IF” Bomb apology is a way to sound as if you’re apologizing when you’re really not. That one little word — if — does a huge thing: creates a sliver of possibility that, no, the offender DIDN’T really do or say the thing that you’re offended about. And, yes, it’s a sliver of qualification, but that’s HUGE in an apology. A person who does that isn’t taking ownership. He’s saying, subtly, “It’s YOUR problem that you perceived it that way.” He’s saying, “Maybe I did that, but MAYBE I DIDN’T.” It’s not a true humble apology. It’s BS and I call it.

Kevin had numerous people calling him on his condescension and contemptuous tone. He offered his If Bomb, his non-apology apology, and THEN CONTINUED TO BE CONDESCENDING AND CONTEMPTUOUS while all the while claiming moral superiority to the rest of us. “I’ve kept my cool.” “I haven’t returned insults.” Or whatever. Well, yes, he did, as I’ve already said earlier in this thread.

But if a person apologizes and is genuinely sorry, he turns away from the behavior that created the offense in the first place. What Kevin did would be like a husband who apologizes to his wife for being drunk on Wednesday night — while he’s drunk on Thursday night. In dropping that If Bomb, though, he gave himself permission to continue his bad behavior because maybe it’s a perception problem of, oh, a half a dozen people or more. Maybe it’s THEIR problem, not his. If If IF.

Gimme a break. That’s meaningless. A gloss-over. A knee-jerk thing to say that you really don’t mean. And it’s definitely NOT an apology.

So clearly, I was ramped up or on the sauce again or, most likely, both.

This is not a unique example. We’ve all received and/or offered these kinds of apologies ourselves. I mention it as an example of a common practice, not to point out Kevin as a unique offender. He’s not.

Sometimes that “if” will placate the offended or wronged person; sometimes, it won’t, but it’s definitely a useful — and cowardly — tool to make it look as if you’re humble and sorry, as if you rillyrilly care. At the core, it’s a deflection, a way to boomerang the whole issue back into the face of the offended, leaving them wondering, “Hm. Did I overreact?”

I don’t write about this thinking that I’ve got the whole apology thing nailed down because I don’t. It’s HARD to apologize. It is. I guess at this point in my life, for the sake of personal and spiritual growth, actually, I force myself to look at criticisms I receive and ask if there’s any truth in them, anything I need to own, no matter from whom they come (Doc, anyone?) and no matter how they’re phrased. And, yamahaha, Crackie, is it painful. It IS. Since I’m generally sure I’m right, I’m always feel as if I’m going to DIE when I sit down with a criticism and force myself to consider it. At that moment, I’m certain just the act of entertaining these less than pro-me thoughts will shrivel my pro-me brain into a useless tiny raisin rolling around in my head, killing me as swiftly as touching a live wire. Basically, it sucks. If I look at it as something I’m doing for me, though, something to keep me from becoming hard and calcified and bitter, then it hurts a tiny bit less. A very tiny bit less. When it’s an issue regarding a loved one, I try to ask myself, “Do I want a relationship or do I want to be right?” If I present it to myself that way — because, yes, I have to sneak up on myself — it’s an easy choice. A tiny bit easier choice.

Apologizing — really doing it — keeps us in touch with our own humanity. Our own frailties. That we can and do screw up. It acknowledges, too, the humanity of the person we’ve wronged or offended. Done wholeheartedly, it’s a weird but wonderful way to bind us together in the messiness of the human stew. Both parties find relief in the transaction when it’s sincerely given and sincerely received. Both parties are “seen.”

I don’t want to become numb to my own humanity. I don’t want to become numb to the humanity of others. If I can’t apologize or equivocate when and if I even do apologize, I’m already becoming that drone, emotionally numb and spiritually calloused, too captivated by my rightness to give a tiny rat’s bottom about anyone else.

And I don’t want to live my life gazing at the reflection of my own perceived rightness.

Because … how lonely is that?