How to Accept the Apology You Never Expected to Come

Have you ever had an experience that just cracked every piece of you, down to your core? Something that you never expected, like being sucker punched in the gut. You didn’t know how it happened. You didn’t know if you should fight to fix it right away, But then realized, It wasn’t your job to fix it. It was the person who took the swing.

So, what do you do when the apology you never expected to come finally arrives?

1. Take a moment to live in the shock. It’s okay. I give you permission.
2. Avoid reading it like the plague.
   •  Scratch that. Covid shows that humans are incapable of avoiding a literal plague.
3.  Avoid it like you avoided your least favorite relative at family gatherings.
4. Stare at the notification that won’t go away until you read or mark the message as read.
5. Take a moment (or a few) to process that they actually sent a message that is likely the apology you never thought you would receive.
6. Ignore it for as many days as you need to decide if you want to read it or not.
7. Talk to a trusted friend about your feelings. Even if they don’t know what to say to help, talking it out might be all that you need.
8. Take the time to decide if you’re ready to hear an apology.
9. Take time to decide if you want the apology or to just move on.
10. Stare at the notification some more.
11. Decide what you want to come out of the apology. Is it the same as when everything happened? Are you reading just to let the person know you heard their apology?
12. Take a deep breath.
13. Read the apology.
14. Take another breath.
15. Continue moving forward.

Hope Goodearl is a high school English teacher with a love for creative writing of all aspects, even if she has a love-hate relationship with poetry. She has previously published 6 other poems to various journals and magazines with the hope of one day publishing a full-length novel.