I Apologize to Others


I wrote a piece a couple of days ago in which I apologized to myself.  I would be remiss if I didn’t also apologize to others – some friends, some family, some acquaintances or colleagues, and some people that I only had a brief encounter with and blew the experience. 

I apologize:

For being impatient,
For being shy and slow-to-warm-up,
For blocking opportunities to know your goodness,
For being impolite,
For half-listening instead of focusing on what you were saying,
For interrupting you because I had something to say,
For introducing you to the one who turned out to be the very wrong one for you,
For being pushy,
For wanting more for you than you sometimes wanted for yourself,
For being perturbed when you did not do what I thought you should do,
For waiting for an apology or connection instead of apologizing or connecting myself,
For avoiding your pain,
For not sharing enough with some and for sharing too much with others,
For lying no matter the intention,
For letting some relationships lapse and others disappear,
For not being more helpful,
For not being more forthcoming,
For being critical instead of being kind,
For being kind instead of being critical,
For letting money come between us,
For going where we should not have gone and doing what we should not have done,
For making comparisons and succumbing to envy,
For missed opportunities to hang-out, celebrate, and break bread together,
For not being more and better.


For all of my efforts to be a good woman, a good friend, a useful worker, a strong leader, a sharer of information and resources, I have often fallen short of achieving these goals.

Please accept my apology.



 


About Candelaria Silva

Candelaria Silva-Collins is a marketing, community outreach and programming consultant; writer; and trainer/facilitator who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She has designed and facilitated workshops on a wide variety of topics including communication, facilitation, job search skills, team building, and parenting issues. She currently coordinates the Community Membership Program of the Huntington Theatre Company. Her work as Director of ACT Roxbury was profiled in several publications, including The Creative Communities Builders Handbook. Candelaria’s children’s stories, short stories, essays and reviews have been published in local and national publications and she is an active blogger. Her publications include the booklets, Handling Rejection; Pushing through Shyness: Networking Tips when You’re Shy, Slow to Warm Up or Just don’t Feel you Belong; and Real Questions about Sex & Relationships for Teens: A Discussion Guide for Parents. She has served on the boards of Goddard College, Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston Foundation for Architecture, and Discover Roxbury. She is currently Chair, Designators of the Henderson Foundation.