Day 3 Sans Coffee- I'm Sorry

I have been putting off writing this entry all day. I have known since the moment I got up this morning what I wanted to say. This doesn’t make it easy to say it though.



I chose poorly. I did something I now see differently. I now see my choice of words as violent, not in the knock-em out drag-em down sort of way, but violent all the same.

I remember once hearing someone say “Everyone has a good reason for what they do”. That even a mass murderer, had in his mind when he did the killing that it somehow made sense and was justified. I remember seeing this when Jeffery Dalmer was on trial back in the early 90’s, that although he had done something unthinkable, he was a man, one who at the time had a reason good enough that he acted on his desire to murder. Just so we are clear here, I didn’t murder anyone. I did hurt someone though. Like Jeffery Dalmer, and I would guess everyone of you who reads this, I let my “good reason” get in the way of acting with tact and care.

In the aftermath of my words there was a lot of anger, confusion, and competition to be heard, understood. Eventually, with help from friends, we were able to see each others pain, and intentions. Eventually I got to say how very sorry I was that my words had caused pain. I feel a huge sense of relief from doing so. It is a strange phenomenon that despite this relief, which I have felt before, and knew lay at the end of this path, there was a familiar resistance to owning my tactlessness, the “good reason” seemed to justify it all. Admitting I had acted without tact made me imagine I was saying “I didn’t have a good reason”. As though it was incongruent to have had a good reason and still done something that hurt another. I didn’t want the fact that my intentions came from a place of wanting one I love to have the same love and care that they themselves give to others to get lost. This is not to say I didn’t see the pain my words had caused, I even knew before I sent/said them that it would cause upheaval. In the place I was coming from, which was a place of frustration and helplessness, I had an idea it was the only way. Turns out it wasn’t the only way. In fact there were far gentler ways I could have chosen that would have caused so much less pain, for everyone, including me. I got hurt by my own words, possibly caused irreparable damage to a relationship that means the world to me. Time will tell.

Sigh....all this AND no coffee to comfort me.

“Have you ever hurt someone you love?” is the question in 12 days journal #169