The apology list, episode 1

This year I am 50. That's simultaneously very old, and still young enough to get plenty done. I can feel my body really complaining on some days. The sleep apnea is the worst of my troubles. Still, on a relative scale, I'm pretty lucky.

In this milestone year I present the following:

The Apology List, Episode 1

Each of these things is something from my past that I regret and wish I could apologize for, but for some unfortunate reason an apology is out of reach. The list is partly about unburdening myself, and partly a chance just to think about how behavior and wisdom evolve over a lifetime. I do of course have other regrets, many far worse. These are the ones that I can put on a public list.

They're not in any particular order.

The Pool

Approximate year:

1985

Person:

Our next-door neighbor, one house up the street. I think her name was Jeanie. Her property had lush landscaping that had grown a bit wild, and somewhere in there was a swimming pool, which had been drained and lain empty for years. The pool was built on a hill and had a small pumphouse below, lost in foliage.

Incident:

One day I wandered into the pumphouse and discovered the pump. I was fascinated by the wires and metal bits, so I returned later on with a screwdriver and took it apart, and stole the motor and carried it home. My parents realized what happened and apologized to Jeanie. She graciously said I could keep the parts. I never spoke to her about it personally.

Reason I can't apologize:

I no longer live at that house, and she no longer lives at the one next door. No one has her contact information, and she is likely deceased.

What I would say:

"I'm sorry I destroyed your pool motor. Thank you for handling it so graciously. I've lived in a lot of neighborhoods now, and I don't think I've ever had neighbors who would respond so well to a kid sneaking onto their property and doing such vandalism. More likely it would result in a furious and threatening rant, police action, and years of resentment. You were truly a great neighbor to a weird and unpredictable kid."

The Industrial Fan

Approximate year:

1999

Person:

An adorable young lady deep into industrial music, arriving as a freshman at UCSC.

Incident:

She had short brown hair and wore a lot of black, and like many people who were in the goth/industrial scene of the time, it was clear that sweetness and cynicism were fighting an epic war inside her head, and she needed allies. She was thrilled to meet people who were into her music, and I could sense she also had a crush on me after we bonded over Skinny Puppy albums. We had friends in common and would often run into each other.

One day she ended a conversation with me by saying "Brap on".

"What?" I said, confused.

"You know ... Uh ... 'Brap', like Nivek Ogre. 'Brap on'."

"Oh! Hah! Yeah, definitely! Brap on!" I said, grinning madly. I'd been too slow to get the reference.

She looked horribly embarrassed. I could read her thoughts on her face: "Oh my god he thinks I'm absolute idiot."

I wasn't fast enough on my feet to correct the impression. She turned and walked quickly away. We never spoke again.

Reason I can't apologize:

I never got a contact email for her outside of the UCSC system, and I've forgotten her name. With luck, she's forgotten completely about me.

What I would say:

"Sorry that exchange went so badly. The truth is, I wasn't used to being in a situation where my approval mattered to anyone else. In fact, I was an idiot in general, for a bunch of reasons during that time, and you would have made a great friend and we could have had plenty of fun conversations, but it might have actually been a blessing that we never dated."

"Dud"

Approximate year:

1983

Person:

My father.

Incident:

When we would greet each other around the house, I would sometimes call him "dud" instead of "dad". In my head I thought it was a fun little tweak to the word that reminded me of Milk Duds and being a "stud" and other good things. What did not occur to me, was that "dud" had another more obvious meaning: A defective explosive. So it was like I was calling my Dad an unexploded bomb, or more generally, a failure.

I probably did it a dozen times. He never questioned me about it. Did he think I was insulting him, and he just swallowed it rather than getting angry? Or did he somehow intuit from my tone and expression that it was positive?

It never even occurred to me to ask, until many years later when I suddenly remembered it.

Reason I can't apologize:

I had opportunities to but it never came up. Now he's gone.

What I would say:

"Whoah dang, I can't believe I didn't realize how stupid and inflammatory that sounded! Thanks for taking it in stride, though I do kinda wish you'd asked me about it."

The Art Teacher

Approximate year:

1988

Person:

The nice art teacher in Santa Cruz that my parents took me to for lessons.

Incident:

I was fascinated by a transparent plastic curtain rod that she had in the back yard as a garden decoration, and at the end of a lesson she let me keep it. There were two other boys present during that session, who were brothers. We were all hanging around on the back porch waiting for our parents to pick us up, and the teacher was inside.

The boys saw the curtain rod. One of them wanted to hold it, but I said no. We argued about it. The other brother saw this, and tried to wrestle it out of my hands. I held on. The first brother got involved. I pushed the curtain rod down onto the porch and added my knee on top, trying to augment my two hands against their four. They pulled upward and yelled at me.

Fearing the curtain rod would break, I decided to run away to the other side of the garden, so I abruptly reversed my effort and pulled it upright. On the way up it smacked the first brother in the face and he let go. Crying, he ran into the house, and the other brother followed. I went to the other side of the garden and sat down, unsure what to do.

A little later it was time for our parents to pick us all up. The art teacher brought me inside and sat me down, and gave me an explanation of what was happening.

The two boys had told their parents they'd been attacked by me without provocation. Their parents had declared that they didn't want to bring their kids to art classes if I was going to be there.

The teacher was familiar enough with me to know I wasn't the kind of person to start a fight, but she hadn't seen the incident so she had no way of defending me to the parents. She said she was on a tight budget and couldn't afford to lose two clients, and the parents had also threatened to tell all the other parents about me and tell them to keep away. So she was giving in to their demands, and I could no longer take classes from her.

For a very long time after this incident I just felt sad, because I'd let the nice art teacher down by getting in trouble. I'd really enjoyed the lessons and wished they could continue. If I'd just let the brothers have the dang curtain rod, even though I was pretty sure they would keep it, that could have happened.

Eventually I saw from the perspective of an adult that she'd left me unsupervised with two kids who were strangers to me, and they were sibling boys who behaved very differently as a pair when together. Perhaps it was a recipe for conflict. Also, while those two boys had been outrageous liars, the real tragedy was that their parents had been bullies, by threatening harm unless their demands were met. The teacher had been caught in the crossfire. This is one of those incidents where I felt there was less to apologize for as time went on.

Reason I can't apologize:

I'm pretty sure the art teacher is deceased. With luck, no one else remembers this incident anyway.

What I would say:

"Sorry I was a factor in that mess. I've always had a stubborn streak, and I didn't get along with almost all the other boys my own age. If I'd been smarter I would have left the curtain rod and run inside, to get an adult back into the situation. I hope your art classes continued and you managed to make enough money that you could be more choosy, and didn't have to placate obnoxious parents any more."