Apologies

Another rant framed as an instructional, forgive me.

Apologies seem to be the type of thing a lot of people have trouble with. It’s difficult to abase yourself, to admit you were wrong, because we always think we are right. But apologies are a common social requirement, and we recognize that we are supposed to apologize sometimes. But because it’s so difficult for us to see ourselves as wrong, we come up with all sorts of variations on the apology, thinking that it will fulfill the social nicety. (Tip: it doesn’t.) I’m going to go through a few of these apology variations that I’ve received recently, and that I still struggle not to give myself.

1. “I’m sorry that you’re upset.” Try again. This is not taking any responsibility for anything, but placing the blame squarely on the person you are attempting to apologize to. And in the worst case scenario, the person will actually hear the implication, “I don’t think you should be upset about this”. Because if they weren’t upset, clearly you wouldn’t be saying anything! Apologies are for you to recognize wrongdoing. You should be able to recognize wrong doing even without the other person telling you that they are upset. The problem is not that they are upset, the problem is something you did that was wrong.

2. “I’m sorry that this happened to you.” This is another version of not taking any responsibility. It’s the equivalent of saying, “I’m sorry because life”. It removes you from the equation at all. “Something happened, but that’s life! It sucks, but life sucks. Bummer for you.” Important note: sympathy is not the same thing as an apology. Take responsibility for your actions. If you caused this “life” to happen, you need to own that.

3. “I’m sorry that I trusted/believed so-and-so when they said this was okay.” Try again. Now you are not blaming life, you are blaming another specific person who is not you. Interestingly, I have heard this variation when the so-and-so was the person being apologized to, which is even worse. That is not an apology at all, that is an accusation framed as an apology.

4. “I’m sorry that my actions caused you pain.” We’re getting closer. You’ve recognized the connection between your actions and the existence of pain. Hooray! However, this is still not quite there. Although it may seem like a fine point, recognizing that something was WRONG is not the same thing as recognizing that you caused pain. There are plenty of circumstances, and plenty of people, who do not find anything wrong with causing pain. I caused my mother pain when I took a job in Reno and moved away from her. But I don’t think that I was wrong to take the job and move away. (And consequently, I would not apologize to her for it. I might sympathize with her for the pain of separation, but I would not apologize.) Again, the point of an apology is to recognize wrongdoing. Because once you have recognized that something you did was wrong, you are better equipped to stop yourself from doing it again. And really, your interlocutor wants to know that you won’t do this again.

5. “I’m sorry, I did it because x,y,z…” This one is interesting, because it starts out with what sounds like an apology, albeit a little vague, but immediately transitions into explanations, ie. excuses. Giving excuses or justifications is another way of alleviating your responsibility. Don’t do that. No matter what your reasonings were, you still had a choice, and you chose wrong. Take ownership of that wrongdoing. That’s all you need to do. Don’t excuse yourself from fault. If later, the person asks you what all your reasonings were, go for it. Explain away. But that is separate from an apology.

I guess ultimately what I’m trying to say is that when you apologize, you need to accept and recognize your wrongdoing without excuses, passing blame, or mitigation of any kind. You were wrong. That’s it. Now apologize. “I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

Again, I still struggle with this every day. I don’t like to be wrong. But sometimes it happens. And I gotta buck up and recognize it so that I don’t do it again.

Relationships and novels

This year has been pretty heavy for relationship thinking, for me. And before anyone flips out, my husband and I are doing great. He’s amazing. 🙂

The side effect of doing a bunch of thinking and communicating and stuff though is that now it’s a little hard for me to read my old romance novels. Because they’re crap for relationship advice, and its easy to see how I could have been influenced by crap like that before.

These days when I read a story in which the girl tells the boy she’s in love but storms off because she “knows” he doesn’t love her back, cries and tells him to leave her alone because she’s hurting so much, and “I don’t want to talk to you anymore” when he says he wants to say something, and all that jazz…all I can think of is that’s crap. It is very possible that the person you’re talking to doesn’t love you in the way that you want or need, but you can’t assume that. You wait and give them a chance to speak. You have an actual conversation. I mean, sure if what you really want is a chance to break up dramatically, then by all means don’t give them a chance to speak. Don’t talk to them. And then, you know, if that’s your choice that is perfectly valid, but don’t pretend that it’s not your choice. Don’t place it all squarely on them.

If you want an actual relationship, you give your partner the opportunity to be an adult and express themselves. None of this I’m going to storm off and stew and it is the man’s responsibility to come back and sweep me off my feet and make it all ok. That’s bullshit. Talk to each other. Give each other the respect to tell them what you want, what you need, and to stop and hear them and listen to what they want and need. (And if their answer is in fact “oh, I really don’t want what you want,” then you totally have permission to say goodbye in as dramatic a fashion as you please.)

Ok, rant over. Goodbye, Nora Roberts. (Irony recognized)

Sewing projects!

I’ve been quiet a long time here — there’s been a ton going on in life, and I’ve been just enjoying it rather than writing about it. But it’s time to share some of my fun projects again! Particularly since, as my husband put it, I’ve recently leveled up my sewing skill.

So, here’s what I’ve been up to…

1) New SCA garb – a red Turkish coat over a white linen gomlek. Paired with a turban and feather, I look like a miniature. I don’t have a photo of the full turban getup, but trust me, 15th century Turkish miniature. 🙂

2) Turkish pants for the baby, which not only turned out awesome, but the process taught me how to make the pattern RIGHT, for REAL, not by accident. (My standard green pants came out lovely pretty much by accident, and I hadn’t been able to reproduce them since). The trick is in the angle of the gore — it needs to be much shallower than you get from just cutting into a rectangle, like my original pattern said. You’re making trapezoids, not triangles. But now I have the secret! Mwahaha, I can make all the shalwar!

3) I made a bunch of garb for a friend, just my standard Turkish shirt/gomlek pattern that I can make in my sleep, except…I figured out how to do the neckline so it’s not all wonky and difficult to sew. Here’s a pic of one of the early ones, and if you look closely you can see how the fabric is pulled at the neckline.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier, but straight seams mean that you can actually hem edge pieces before you sew them together. For necklines with hard angles, this makes things a LOT easier. Voilà! A neckline that does not pull the fabric.

4) The beginnings of a steampunk outfit. I’m using Halloween as an excuse to finally put together something steampunk, which I’ve been dying to do now for ages. In honor of the re-released Deadlands Doomtown game (and because I’ve never really let go of my Deadlands character from an old rpg), I’m doing Old West steampunk. The full outfit will get posted after Halloween, but the pieces I’ve finished now include a hi-lo bustle skirt (with fringe!)…

and a bolero.

This is the pièce de resistance. I’ve never made anything so fancy in my life. I couldn’t believe my machine could go through the pleated layers of corduroy, but it did! I was also very pleased that I was able to put together a fully lined jacket, essentially, out of scraps. That’s right, fabric scraps. Small ones. G-d bless boleros and other small articles of clothing.

5) Lastly, I’ve been playing around with making underwear and lingerie. My earliest experiments don’t have nice enough finishings to take flat photos, and they are far too revealing to post posed ones, but I did start working on a bralette-panties set last night that also falls under the “learning lots about sewing” category.

Lessons learned from lingerie making so far: a) jersey is a pain to work with (the stretch stitch on my machine is pretty horrendous) but SO comfortable that I don’t think I’ll make anything but, b) when the stretch stitch fails, zig-zag is your friend, c) when making bra-like things, curved seams are essential. Even when the wearer in question (yours truly) doesn’t have very deep curves.

Thus, behold! My halfway completed bralette set, including finished panties (not exciting to look at, but very comfortable on) and a halfway finished bralette. I spent all evening figuring out the pieced/seamed cups, cutting a slit in the back because I had accidentally cut it too small for my waist, and trying it on a zillion times, probably giving the neighbors an eyeful, before deciding to finish it up the next day. Still…almost done! I’m very excited to see how the finished product turns out.

Personhood

This is a rant about personhood and respect that I’ve found myself giving to multiple people recently, so I thought I would save it, for copying and pasting the next time it comes up.

The whole categorization of a person as “broken” or needing “fixing” irritates the heck out of me. No one can fix anyone else. They are a person, not an appliance, and YOU do not have control over them. All you can try and do is give them the tools to help themselves, if they are so inclined. But you can’t fix anyone, just like you can’t force them to think a certain way or not think a certain way. It may take a lot of tools, and a lot of patience, but if someone is not capable of helping themselves you are relegating them to not-personhood. When you say, “I need to fix them”, you are saying, “I don’t think they are a person, I think they are a thing.” Now, if you have reached that point, where you have given up on someone’s ability to be a person, then you do them no favors by condescending to “help”. If anything, you are perpetuating your (and their) perception of themselves as a thing rather than a person.

Everyone deserves a modicum of respect. Treat people like people. Part of that means believing, knowing beyond a doubt, that they are capable.

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Negative emotion

Sometimes, feeling a negative emotion does not mean there’s something wrong with you. It does not mean you’re crazy, or depressed, or insecure. Sometimes, it just means that the situation is fucked up and needs to be fixed.

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