Sorry Not Sorry: On apologies and boundaries

I've seen my students punctuate tweets and statuses with a phrase, often in hashtag form, over and over: "Sorry not sorry." It's an anthem of their generation. The unrepentant declaration always bristled me. I'm not sorry. Ergo, I'm not apologizing. But I also get it--they're staking their claim for feeling the way they feel, even in the face of elders who've raised them to be more mannerly, puppeteering their sorries when they really were not very sorry at all.

What about when we really are sorry? What is required of us when we truly are sorry?

As a teacher, apologies are one of the currencies I am supposed to accept in the barter system of assignments and grades. "I'm sorry I couldn't complete this assignment in time. Technology conspired against me." "I'm sorry for being late for class today. My roommate turned off my alarm by accident." "I'm sorry I was not able to come to class today--I was feeling under the weather."

I know there is a sincere sorrow in {some of} the sorries I receive. I know it does not benefit me to judge the sincerity of {any of} them. What is sorrow for something done in error if there is no repentance, though? What worth does an apology have that simply observes a custom of niceties?

Our tenant gives us a Christmas card. He apologizes that there's no envelope. He apologizes in the card for all the noise. But he's a musician. How can he not generate noise and how can he truly be sorry for the noise? He does not want to repent of noise--it's his job, his identity. He still feels sorrow for the ways in which the noise affects us and the hours, decibals that it reaches us.

In this instance, I realize it is possible to hold two truths, one in each hand, and for neither to eclipse the other.

In one hand, he holds sorrow for causing us irritation. In the other hand, he holds an unrepentant love of making his music.

***

This last school year, the personal theme that has emerged for me is BOUNDARIES. How I don't have them, how I need them, how I'm afraid of instituting them, how ultimately I'm so mad at everyone because of my failure to embrace them. How I'm going to die if I don't learn how to nail them.

Ahem. So yeah. That's been my area of interest.

Like most hard-wired people pleasers, I have been learning to let the smallest biggest word to emerge from my mouth (it's spelled N-O) while my neck cranks back and forth in synchronicity. I've got a long history of saying YES while on the inside the feelings were rioting and the heart was launching an OCCUPY NO movement and my hands got clammy and my sleep vanished as I lived in dread of the things to which I said yes, sure thing, you got it, you bet, you can count on me, YES - party of one.

I just felt so much guilt in the saying no, initially. So I said, Sure, Friend, you can sift through my closet. Then I got mad when she took all my clothes. I said, Okay, Teens from the youth group--y'all can sleep over in my dorm room. Then I got mad because I was sick for the rest of the weekend and got nothing done. I said, Hey, why don't you come over to my house and cry at my kitchen table when you're sad. Then I got mad when she wanted me to be her therapist.

It was all so virtuous, the reasons I said yes, initially. Jesus shouldered the weight of the world, surely I could sign up for one meal train. Even though my kids never see me cooking during the school year. Even though I sit down to a bowl of cereal most nights. I can ferry over a casserole to the church member who just had a new baby.

If you really examine Christ's behavior in the height of His ministry, though, the Savior of the world had boundaries. He retreated. He made specific requests of other people. He delegated jobs to a bunch of knuckleheads even though He knew they lacked faith to even see them through to completion. He didn't get mad that He said Yes to living in a broken world, even though He knew how it would all end.

I started to awaken to this once I saw that Brene Brown video that should be required for all people-pleasers and those in recovery from people-pleasing. She says she learned about boundaries only after she turned 35. Oh look. I'm 35. Maybe that's why they don't let you run for President until now in the hopes that you've learned about boundaries. Dr. Brown says that once she learned about setting boundaries, she became less nice and more loving. I absolutely want that to be my legacy. Not to be remembered for being nice. Niceness is the sugar in lemonade that hides the sour, niceness is a smile that fades. Love is enduring and infinite and we have more of it to pour out into the people who need it and who matter when we identify and stand firm on the boundaries in the rest of our life where we can only offer cups of sugar for their sour pitchers of lemonade.

I am learning ever so clumsily to hold the two truths at once, out in front to a world that wants me to choose only one. I'm learning the art of being sorry I can't say yes, but also not sorry that I'm saying no. I've learned to say, "I'm sorry--I wish I could." I've learned to say, "But I can't."

You can hashtag that "Sorry now, not sorry later."

Wishes

Little Man: The other day when I made a wish on the wishbone, I wished that-- Baby Girl: DON'T SAY WHAT IT IS IT WON'T COME TRUE! Little Man: It already came true. Baby Girl: Oh. What was it? Little Man: I wished that I would snuggle with Mama. Baby Girl: But you snuggle every day with Mama?!

*** Wishes are granted, prayers are answered; we look for stars colliding but often it's the stardust settling into the cracks of our life that holds things together, that holds us in place to experience the good, the great, the snuggles under Blanket Mountain.

Oh gosh. Not another crybaby with depression.

This is not a crybaby post about depression. Whatever that means.

It is, rather, a very practical post about how I live with depression and generalized anxiety disorder, especially in the winter when it worsens. I've learned to make practical modifications so that suicide ideation is no longer a very real part of my every day and so that I am not an entirely miserable person with whom to share tubes of toothpaste and children and life.

I've been envisioning this post for awhile now. It's been rattling around in my head, dancing with delusions about how I'm going to package it cute-like as if living with depression were a Betty Crocker recipe for making pineapple upside-down cake. But depression slows me down and drains me of motivation (when I am otherwise a fairly hyperactive person with a zeal for socializing and hobbies). I realized this post would never happen if I didn't just aim low and crank out something, albeit not very fancy.

So here we go. Some things that have helped me stay afloat through especially hard months in Depression Town. I hope it helps someone. 

I learned a long time ago that taking a particular dose of a particular anti-depressant helped me to feel a certain way. It means I don't laugh really hard like I used to. This also means I don't cry at the drop of a hat like I used to. I take my pill every day and I may very well take it for the rest of my life. Oh no, aren't you afraid of being dependent on a chemical? I am afraid of a heapton of things in this world. Many are beyond my control. Many exist as figments of my imagination. Many exist well beyond the horizon line of my lifetime. I can't be preoccupied with them. I take each day as it comes. That's what effectively living with depression looks like to me. Taking my prescribed dosage and being thankful for healthcare coverage and not worrying about how many more days I will need to keep doing the same--that's my jam. 

I am not a morning person by nature. I often take hours to fall asleep at night and oftentimes I don't stay asleep. Every semester, I teach an 8 a.m. class. When a colleague evaluated my teaching last semester, she said, "I can tell you're not a morning person but you do a really good job of trying to pretend you are." I laughed. Just because we have depression doesn't mean we can all have a schedule that is favorable. Still, I have learned to fake only what is necessary. I wouldn't recommend faking pleasure or friendship or happiness. I am willing to put a brave face forward in my early classes, though, because it only requires that I show up, prepared and ready to face the day, and I can tell that most of my students are trying to do the same. We are in the early morning struggle together.

I keep my life very simple, especially in the winters. I rarely say YES to things, and prefer a month of lame weekends to busy ones. I don't like to dread activities that should otherwise be fun. I have learned which friends will take things personally and which friends are safe to tell that I really don't feel up to things right now. Some friends will hold it against you and others will totally understand that you just feel overwhelmed by social expectations but look forward to seeing them when you're feeling better.

The hardest thing I have found about living with depression is still being present for my hubby and kids. They may ask so little of me, e.g. to read a book to them or listen to a story and yet Depression, liar of liars, will trick my mind into thinking it's a huge mountain to climb. The best way I have learned to be present is to be honest right out of the gate. To say to my kids almost immediately when I pick them up from school: Mommy is having a hard day. Do you ever feel like you just want to watch TV and not talk to anyone? That's how Mommy feels today. My kids are remarkably accommodating when I let them know that I am wearing my grumpy pants and it's not because of anything they have done. My husband is a living saint where depression is concerned and gets it and doesn't hold it against me and makes me salads without asking. Praises be.

To that end, the final strategy I've learned to help immensely when I feel depression cloaking me is to practice radical self-care. I am uncompromising when it comes to eating healthfully and exercising just about every day. Depression will tell me that I deserve to eat a pan of Rice Krispie treats for dinner and be a wicked slob. Fast forward to when I am so much worse off and feeling all frumpalump and really? No, Depression. You may win the battle of the couch potatoes but this yoga mat is not your battleground. Move along.

I am thankful for my faith and for my friends and family who have loved me through some rocky times. Depression can be a badge and a burden but it can also be the reason that blessings flood us when we need it most. Sending courage to all the depression warriors out there, and those who love them. <3