They Don’t Open Doors or Bring The Sun Back

I’ve been thinking about apologies.

Not because I need one. Not because I owe one. Just because I found myself thinking about a passage from For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf and the exhaustion woven through it. The exhaustion of stories. Explanations. Reasons.

At some point, what are you supposed to do with all of the ‘sorries’ that are handed to you?

I’ve never been particularly interested in apologies as a social ritual. Mostly because I’ve spent so many years working with children.

I never make children say sorry.

Not because I don’t care about accountability.

Because I care about it too much.

When a child hurts another child, we insist on “sorry” long before they understand what it means.

Say you’re sorry.

Okay.

Now what?

The crying child is still crying.

The toy is still broken.

The friendship is still strained.

The hurt is still sitting there.

So instead, we slow down.

We look at what happened.

We check in with the thing that was hurt.

If it’s another child, we look at their face. Their tears. Their body.

“Look. They’re sad.”

“That hurt them.”

“What do you think they need right now?”

Sometimes it’s a hug.

Sometimes it’s space.

Sometimes it’s a high five.

Sometimes it’s simply being noticed.

If a toy was broken, we look at the toy.

If a book was ripped, we look at the page.

Not because I want the child to feel ashamed.

Quite the opposite.

I don’t want children carrying shame for learning.

I want them carrying understanding.

There’s a difference.

Shame says:

“I am bad.”

Understanding says:

“My actions affect other people.”

One creates secrecy.

The other creates responsibility.

And responsibility is what repair grows from.

Sorry, by itself, has never felt like the point.

Repair is the point.

The apology is merely the announcement that repair is coming.

A good apology, at least to me, works something like this:

I did it.

It hurt you.

I understand why.

I am going to stay here long enough to understand the impact.

I am going to change whatever led to this.

I am going to work very hard not to do it again.

The further along in life I get, the more I realize that the changed behavior is the apology.

The words are just subtitles.

And maybe that’s why repeated apologies have always confused me.

If you keep apologizing for the same thing, year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation, what exactly are we doing?

At what point does “sorry” become another story?

A story about why it happened.

A story about how complicated it is.

A story about how everyone feels.

A story about how difficult change would be.

A story about how long it has been.

A story about intentions.

A story about misunderstandings.

A story about the story.

Meanwhile, the original harm remains exactly where it was.

I think that’s part of why so many Black Americans are tired.

Not tired of history.

Not tired of conversations.

Not tired of learning.

Tired of stories without repair.

The country is full of acknowledgments.

Commemorations.

Statements.

Panels.

Documentaries.

Curriculum fights.

Public debates.

Endless discussions about whether a thing happened, how it happened, who benefited, who suffered, and what we should call it.

The discussions continue.

The harm continues.

And at some point I find myself responding the same way I would if someone stepped on my foot every day for four hundred years.

I do not need another explanation.

I need you to stop stepping on my foot.

People often ask what repair looks like.

I don’t know.

I don’t particularly care.

And that sounds flippant, but I mean it in the sincerest of ways.

If someone breaks a window in my house, I don’t become responsible for obtaining an architecture degree before they are obligated to fix it.

If someone crashes into my car, I don’t need to submit a doctoral dissertation on auto body repair before they admit responsibility.

The obligation to repair belongs to the person who broke the thing.

That doesn’t mean the repair will be easy.

It doesn’t mean everyone will agree.

It doesn’t mean there is one perfect solution.

It simply means that wanting to repair is a choice.

A choice.

Because if I hurt someone, my first instinct isn’t to explain myself indefinitely.

My first instinct is to make sure I never have to watch them experience that particular hurt from me again.

And again, these observations stem from my years of caring for children.

Children understand something adults seem determined to forget.

When something is broken, you don’t stand around discussing the word “sorry.”

You check on what was hurt.

You help repair it.

You learn from it.

And then you move forward together.

Either way, I find myself less interested in apologies these days.

I am interested in responsibility.

I am interested in changed behavior.

I am interested in repair.

Sorry is a sentence.

Repair is a practice.

And one of them lasts much longer than the other.