Forgiveness

There is really no place like an old school DC suburban swim club early on a soon to be hot and humid Saturday morning in June. It's one of those things. IYKYK. 

It's 8:06 and I'm stationed at my team rep post: two chairs, a nice round table, and an umbrella for shade. For the uninitiated, team rep is the greatest job at a summer swim meet. It's a job that I earned through a combination of years of on-deck service and friendship with the meet manager. I'm going to hold on to this job until I retire from summer swimming next year. 

Once the meet starts, I will be busy watching races, making notes on results and disqualifications, and cheering of course, because that is another team rep perk. We get to cheer. Right now, though, I am just watching warmups, listening to music, and drinking hot tea in the dewy cool of a June early morning in the DMV. It's a pretty good life. 

*****

That was yesterday. Yesterday was a lovely day, mostly. I haven’t felt free for most of the summer so far, mostly for reasons having to do with my own psyche and not to do with any external obligations. But I felt free yesterday, like the rest of the beautiful summer Saturday that stretched before me was just one of many days of summer freedom ahead. 

And then it all went to hell in a handbasket of course, with the eruption of unexpected and unnecessary drama and controversy and my foolish decision to insert myself into it. I usually avoid all drama, almost to a fault, but I seem to be doing lots of things that I don’t normally do. It’s all OK now, I guess. I just still don’t feel right. I was rude to someone, and I yelled at someone else who probably deserved to be yelled at but people shouldn’t always get what they deserve. I’m glad that I myself don’t always get what I deserve. I was going to avoid Mass this morning because I didn’t want to hear the fall-of-Roe v. Wade cheerleading from the pulpit, but I think I need to do penance. 

*****

So I did go to Mass, and it was not terrible. Our pastor surprised me by focusing his homily on the day’s Gospel, and not saying one word about abortion. The church was half-empty, which is not typical. I don’t know if people were avoiding church because they were afraid of running into protestors (not even one), or not in the mood to hear the kind of pro-life triumphalism that I had been dreading. But it was fine. 

It was fine, but I didn’t feel any better. I felt worse and worse all day. I emailed a letter of apology to one person (to whom I had already spoken) and went to speak to the other person involved, who was not around. And when I couldn’t apologize to that second person and didn’t hear anything back from the first person, I felt worse and worse. My stomach was in knots and I was on the verge of tears all afternoon. Today, I worked in the office but thankfully, everyone else I work with was either on vacation or teleworking because I could not stop crying. Also thankfully, I had two presentations to revise, and a tri-fold pamphlet to redesign, and that was absorbing enough to distract me. But not enough to distract me completely. The first person finally responded to my email after almost a day. I guess we’re fine now. I still need to apologize to the other person. And I guess that will be fine too. 

*****

It’s Tuesday now, a telework day for me. Telework days allow me to start early and end early or start early and take a housework break and end late or to start later (when we don’t have our morning meeting) and end later so I can write in the morning, or any combination of the three. And telework days allow me to avoid people, which is why I should not telework for more than two days a week because given the chance I will hide from almost all people, almost all the time. 

I went to swim last night, and the first person was there in the pool, teaching her usual weekly water aerobics class. She either didn’t see me or just didn’t acknowledge me because she was busy teaching, which is perfectly fine. And I didn’t acknowledge her because she was busy teaching, and because I didn’t want her to feel obligated to invite me to join the class. Plus I really hate water aerobics. I swam my laps, timing my exit to make sure that I didn’t run into any of the water aerobics people on my way out, and I came home and felt sad again, but not so much as earlier. 

And that is where I am now, and I guess that is where I’ll be for a bit, and I guess that’s fine. I lost my temper and treated other people rudely and I don’t think I’m supposed to feel so great, maybe not for a while. I can’t apologize to the first person again. I apologized twice and it’s up to her to accept or reject my apology, to forgive or not to forgive. It’s out of my hands. Maybe when I apologize to the other person, I’ll feel normal again. Maybe I won’t. Maybe the person who causes the injury should feel the pain for longer than the person injured. Maybe I just have to spend a lot more time trying to be a better person. That’s going to suck. 

Saturday morning was just such a nearly perfect morning. It seems ages ago now.