Random discovery/emo moment at 4 AM

[sagesaria]

In The Marriage of Bette and Boo, the play Anthoney and I saw a while back, there was this one girl. I don't remember her name, but she was very young and a little disturbed. She was ALWAYS apologizing. It starts when she forgets the song she was going to perform for Bette on her wedding day. She sobs hysterically about it, spends several days after trying and failing to remember, and writing several letters of apology to everyone at the wedding. Through the whole play she keeps messing things up. Little things, like spilling gravy on the rug. She cries and apologizes so much, writes letters of apology every other scene. Near the end of the play, she even asks Skippy, Bette and Boo's son, to proofread a letter for her and when he asks who it's for she says "...I don't know."

Discovery?

I'm that girl.

Comments

[celestialtiger.livejournal.com]

*huggles* I know the feeling. Only for me it was the one episode of Eva when Shinji is saying sorry all the time and everyone keeps yelling at him to stop saying he's sorry.... but the only thing he can think of saying in reply to that is sorry. XD

[maugorn.livejournal.com]

When one screws up in a big, dramatic fashion (like messing up a friend's wedding), a formal apology letter is certainly in order.

However, this character sounds like she is locked into a cycle where she's over-emphasised the importance of making amends, and under-emphasised the usefulness of figuring out what's tripping her up so that she can make forward progress and not be constantly making the same mistakes.

There could be a part of her that is embracing the self-sabotage, because her friends and family will know that constantly apologising is not helping her get anywhere, and will simply let her off the hook. The problem with embracing that side of the cycle is that ultimately it leads to the temptation of letting people down to the point where they cease expecting anything from you altogether. While that *seems* like it would easier to do, it's actually pretty destructive. You can't really remove yourself from life without damaging others. Constant apologies will not mitigate that damage.

If you make the same mistakes over and over again, and only ever say "sorry sorry sorry" even as you continue to do the same things, you not only lose your credibility, but also, your apologies are no longer worth anything.
Doing that is even more damaging, in the long run, than not being sorry at all, but simply not repeating the mistake.

It is important, vitally important, to make amends for one's mistakes. But it is even more important to make the effort to learn from them, and move on as a (sometimes incrementally) better person. When one's mistakes and trespasses are transcended in this fashion, forgiveness will come all on it's own, and constantly asking for it will not longer be necessary.