Several things have happened to me in the past year that have put me in the familiar situation of either owning my truth, or trying to save face.
Women are trained from the moment they enter this world to not only apologize for everything, even things they had nothing to do with, but to explain themselves.
It is one thing to apologize and yet another to explain yourself and justify why you did or said something.
We are taught to be flustered in situations where we did something wrong. It is to make us weak and end up feeling very very bad about ourselves afterward. Making excuses and explanations leaves an awful bad feeling in ones soul.
We are taught to fall all over ourselves with explanations. To gush with them.
It is to make us a good girl.
To just apologize, a simple I am sorry and stop there, takes a lot more courage than you might expect. A woman will be questioned, no, interrogated to explain why she was a bad girl.
Even for us to say no, we go into explanations. This is very demeaning. Why can’t we just say no. No I won’t work on my day off. No I don’t want to go out with you. No I don’t like that. No, I don’t want to do that.
Recently I apologized for something I did do wrong, and for something I said. I did do those things and I was wrong to do so. I owned my truth. I did not elaborate. I was interrogated but I said nothing further, just repeated my apology until they finally understood that was all they were going to get from me. And that was enough.
My heart was pounding. My temperature rose to a hundred degrees. I sweat. But I felt terrific later.
Being true to yourself is extremely hard. No one likes to admit they were wrong. Especially if they did or said something on purpose. And women are suppose to explain why, which is so humiliating.
Sometimes I just fuck up. Sometimes I am in a bad mood. Sometimes I don’t know why I did or said something. Sometimes I do. But why do I need explain it to anyone? We all make mistakes, accidently and on purpose.
Own your truth without a single word more. It is freeing.