The Thing I No Longer Apologize For: Choosing Yourself Without Apology

There’s a moment in your life when you realize you’ve been shrinking. Sometimes it happens slowly, so slowly you hadn’t noticed until you felt half the size you used to be. Other times it hits like a jolt: a question asked, a comment made, a boundary crossed, and suddenly you hear yourself say sorry for something that isn’t yours to carry.

Photo by Deniz Altindas on Unsplash

We learn early (especially as women) that an apology is a form of social currency. We hand it out at the grocery store when someone bumps into us. We use it to soothe discomfort in rooms where we were never the source of discomfort to begin with. We tuck it into conversations like a buffer, a pre-emptive softening, a way of saying: Please don’t think I’m too much. Please don’t think I’m selfish. Please don’t think I’m difficult.

Over time, you start to feel the weight of every unnecessary apology. Each one has chipped away at you and quietly rewritten your sense of what you deserve.

One day, you stop and realize: I don’t have to apologize for this anymore.

You don’t have to apologize for having needs, for resting, for wanting more, for saying no, for taking up space in your own life.

This week in The Rewrite Workshops, you’re writing to pay attention to the moment (or moments) you no longer apologize for.

May this be the moment you choose yourself without apology.

Writing Prompt:

Write about one thing—big or small—that you are done apologizing for. Begin with a memory of when you used to shrink or soften around it. Then shift into the present: who are you becoming now that you’ve stopped saying sorry for this thing?