apologies.

“Well, sure, but I mean, are there things you would change if you could?” she pressed.

I thought about the question again, considering what in my life I would have chosen to do differently. I’ve made my fair share of mistakes, chosen things out of convenience rather than certainty. I’ve said things I wish I had said differently. Maybe I’ve done things I wish I hadn’t done. If I could go back to my 18-year-old self, I would tell her that living at home for a year and commuting to Northwestern University would be worth whatever sacrifice of freedom from my parents I was seeking at the time. I would have chosen the college I really wanted to go to instead of settling for Loyola University. I might have told my 20-year-old self that coming out to her family as bisexual was not the end of her relationship with them. If I could go back to my 22-year-old self, I would tell her to take the chance and move to Boston to go to Dartmouth University for a Masters in English. To trust her best friend and believe that we could make a life for ourselves there. It’s possible I would give my 24-year-old self permission to call off a wedding I wasn’t convinced I wanted to have. If I could go back to my 35 year-old self, I would assure her that staying in Chicago was the right thing to do, rather than running away back to the east coast. Of course there are pivotal moments I look back on and wish they had gone differently.

The problem with backwards thinking, though, is that I had all the information I needed to make a different decision each time. I just wasn’t ready to process it. Backwards thinking is a quagmire I refuse to get stuck in. That said, certain apologies have been necessary. Some I’ve had the strength to say out loud, and some bear repeating ad infinitum. The first and most important apology I would like to make to myself: I’m sorry I didn’t love myself enough to listen to what my head and my heart were telling me for so long. I’m sorry I let fear guide my decisions. I’m sorry I tried to hide who I was from those who loved me most. I’m sorry I let my need for validation from others direct the way I presented myself. I’m sorry I wasn’t honest about my feelings because I didn’t want to disappoint others. I’m sorry I couldn’t communicate my needs or figure out my boundaries.

Thankfully, if I were making a list of all those I had harmed by my codependency, it would be short and sweet: my mother, who wanted nothing except to see me fully express myself; and my once-best-friend-then-life-partner-now-estranged, who wanted nothing except to see me fully express myself. The former because she lived in agony as I struggled to own who I was; the latter because he lives in agony to accept that my owning who I am meant destroying the life he had helped to create for me. While there are others I’m sure I’ve offended or hurt, none I’m sure were as invested in me as my mother and my estranged.

The pain I live with now is that while I have been able to apologize to my mother time and time again, I find it nearly impossible to apologize to the estranged. When opportunities do arise, any apology is erased by the next perceived injustice caused by my maintaining a boundary. No matter how much I apologize for any unfair and unkind ways I have treated him or the things I have said in desperation, he will always look at me through the pain of rejection. While my mother and I get to have the relationship we have always wanted, my estranged and I are condemned to live in eternal misunderstanding of each other. The one person in my life who saw me clearly now can’t see me at all through his rage. How can I blame him? To live with someone who was unfettered and unrestrained by boundaries, only to be stonewalled by them now must be an impossible thing to reconcile.

Perhaps it’s not so much that I haven’t been able to apologize to him, but that he seems no closer to being able to accept my apologies than he was four years ago. Making amends doesn’t always result in a repaired relationship with those you’ve hurt. As much as I think we both wish to reconfigure our relationship into a friendly one, not just for the sake of our children but for ourselves, we have hurt each other too much to be able to communicate without misunderstanding each other’s motives. As much as I long to be invited into his world, I know how tightly the strings are attached. His love feels conditional; unless I accept all aspects of his world-view, I am persona non grata. I am sorry to admit I still yearn for his approval and acceptance.

Most of all, I am sorry that the person I have chosen to share the stage with in my second act has to accept all of this history in order to love me now. Though she knows I wouldn’t be who I am now without all that has happened before her, I know the memories of the good times I had with my estranged still sting a bit. I know she feels incomparable to my estranged in many ways; as much as she knows I have no regrets for leaving him, she worries that she cannot create memories for me like the ones I have with him. What saves us both and fuels our love is knowing that we cannot create for one another; we must create with one another. And co-creating is something we do better together than either of us could do on our own.