Diane Keaton is a brilliant actress, sure, but one of the reasons I truly adore her is because of how Woody Allen once described what it was like to work with her and know her and love her: "She's one of those incredibly smart women who finds herself apologizing all the time. She wakes up in the morning and looks over to you and says, 'Oh, I'm sorry.'"
When I first heard this years ago, I was incredibly neurotic if not smart, and I thought, oh, she and I would get along. We'd apologize even for getting along so well. If someone I love is having a bad day, my first assumption is that I'm responsible. When someone doesn't call me back, like, within five minutes after I leave a message, it must be because I haven't made amends for one or another of my indiscretions. Also since I tend to snap quickly and frequently for reasons I don't understand until immediately after the snap, I have just cause to apologize almost daily. So along with being a crier, I'm an apologizer.
(Quick aside: I'm always telling my students how people who march around saying, "Let me tell you about me: I'm _______ type of person" really grates on my nerves. And I'm fast discovering that this blog is that very obnoxious self-defining thing, only perhaps worse because instead of letting the words die in the air, I'm chiseling them into some wall of my computer, and yours. I never said I wasn't hypocritical.)
Now for a slight turn: I've gotten into maybe a handful of verbal arguments since I've been a real live adult. One of the few was with my sister last year, and it ended with some face slaps and hair tugging, so now that I think of it that probably counts as a fist fight. It's a lot of pressure being the educated, equanimous adult in the family.
The last verbal argument happened earlier today, and it was with my aunt, my mom's sister. This blog isn't a place to air out the dirty details, but I can say that the whole discussion was stunning and that in this argument, unlike the many in my life, I had very little to say. I let her rant at me for minutes while I cried and then hung up with a final "I'm sorry!".
Daily I make dozens of mistakes, and say and think mean things and become happy when bad stuff happens to Republicans and other people I don't like. These are things for which I should apologize. But in this situation, I had no fucking reason to say I was sorry.
It's okay if you don't believe me. I didn't tell you the whole story and for at least the reason of equivocal writing don't deserved to be believed. That's no matter, because here's the kicker: a few hours after the incident, my aunt called my mom to apologize. She explained to my mom what happened for the second time (I'd already blubbered in her ear) and how she was in the wrong, how it was bad timing, how I didn't deserve to be yelled at, etc. All of this, to my mom. Thank the stars that my mother, my hero, relayed the message to me quickly and for the second time today assuaged my pain by confirming our beliefs: I was right, it was all her fault, that meanie. But still I was disappointed, because the apology didn't belong on my mom's end of the receiver. It belonged in mine.
This wouldn't be worth writing about if it weren't the second time in as many months that an apology that should've been directed to me instead went to someone who loves me. A couple of months ago I quit my former gym because of a disgusting series of events in which a big sweaty man said inappropriate things over and over again to a smaller sweaty me to the soundtrack of Def Leppard's Greatest. (It was a gross gym and I'm so glad to be out of it.) After that incident, in which I made my disgust and intention to leave the gym very clear to sweaty man, said sweaty man calls Brock to apologize for anything he said to me that might've been offensive. Calls my husband!
So I'm wondering if I'm stuck in some circle of Dante's hell, but one on earth, in which I, the profuse apologizer, become surrounded by strange and angry non-apologizers, and find myself apologizing to others for their non-apologizing ways. Hit me, non-apologizers, tell me you don't love me, that I should never write another word, that I'm a terrible teacher and not inspiring and not the things I'd always hoped to be when I became a real live adult, and I'll respond with an apology. For making you be strange and angry. For not being able to show you bugginess. For being Brooke instead.
I really liked this entry, but I'm not yet sure how to respond. I love how you imagine conversations with Diane Keaton and with the non-apologizers of your personal hell. I'll write more when I'm a bit more sober and have time to better digest your truly awesome final paragraph. There was a lot going on in it that my drunk mind can't quite wrap itself around (or perhaps I'm afraid of reducing it to a subtext, and I think that's the wrong approach to it).
ReplyDeleteDon't apologize for not being buggy, buggy:)
ReplyDeleteI think I am better equipped to respond now, but maybe not!
ReplyDeleteFirstly, though the reason for saying this may be because I'm reading Me Talk Pretty One Day at the moment, this entry strongly reminded me of the chapter in that book called "I Almost Saw This Girl Get Killed." I love that, as Sedaris phrases it, you are able to ponder the depths of your inhumanity as you write about hating Republicans and feeling justified for being right after the fact of the argument with your aunt. We really do need to struggle with our inner vachette (a young cow or bull) once in a while, and I love that you do so. And without apologizing for it!
More importantly, I love how the last paragraph turns the title to your entry on its head. It's a beautiful move from briefly defining yourself as a crier and apologizer at the beginning, to hating yourself for it in the middle, and then ending by suggesting that you feel cheatd for not being given the opportunity by your aunt or the sweaty man to be that apologizer. And, of course, you are right that you are much much more than an apologizer. But, like with my blog, you end up investing a lot of energy in these moments even when you clearly realize they do not tell you who you are.
Hmmmm. Don't know if the ending came off right (this is a blog goddammit, and it will never be perfect and I shant apologize for it...yeah right). Murkiness is what happens when I try to be too poetical. I know this about myself, but do it anyway. Sigh!
ReplyDeleteOkay, so the ending is supposed to decry the fact that I'd LIKE a fucking apology when I deserve it yet never get one, and that I feel kinda like a coward when I so want to be liked and loved that I apologize to people who don't deserve it. So I want the people who owe me apologies to go all out and rape my brain or something, really come close to rhetorically killing me, because after all, I'm just trying to be Brooke. And they yell at me for it. And that's wrong. (Or is it, elusive question mark?)
Bleh. I'm really damned tired!
Oh, I got that out of the ending as well, Brooke. I was just giving you a more "writerly" or perhaps "interpretive" take on it. So, like Court writes, don't apologize for your writing!
ReplyDelete