Reconciliation.

First off, I am SO thankful for bedtime because Presley has been ON IT today.

I want to talk about something that is really important, so this might be a bit less fluffy than what I usually write here. Today was a non-running day, (which I am also thankful for), which means I do the elliptical at the gym. When I do the elliptical I watch TV, usually Intervention (on demand). I have noticed the past couple times I have watched it that the people being intervened on needed to hear someone important to them say they were sorry for something. They needed this so much it was eating them alive from the inside out. It wasn't anything huge that they needed, just a recognition that a wrong was done, and an "I'm sorry" to start making it right.
I understand this. I understand the need for recognition of a wrong from someone in order to make things right. It took a really long time for me to get to a point where I genuinely understood that that was what I needed, and approach the person who I felt needed to admit the wrong. When this person and I had that moment, where they said sorry and meant it and knew what they were sorry for, I became completely free to love them the way I always wanted to. There was complete reconciliation. This person could have chosen not to apologize. They could have thought in their own mind there was no need to say sorry for anything at all, that they did the best they could with the hand they were dealt. At that point I would have had to find a way to let go of my need for an apology and move on from it- which would have been really hard and I had already failed miserably at this for many years, (whole other blog for this scenario). All that to say, I have been there.
What I really want to get at though, is this: if you screwed up and hurt someone, say you're sorry. Big or little, say you are sorry. I don't care what anyone says, people by nature are fragile, so easily broken- don't be the kind of person who breaks something and doesn't fix it.
Also, if you are living there, in that place of needing an "I am so sorry"- talk to the person who you need it from. The worst that can happen is for them to blow you off, which is no worse than living needing it in the first place. But maybe they don't know. Maybe they need you to tell them how broken you are.

Today I am thankful for my own reconciliation. I am thankful for the weight of needing an apology being lifted from me. I am thankful that I understand all of this, so that if it is ever me who needs to do the apologizing, I will recognize it, and do it.