Apologizing to myself
This post was prompted by an article in Yoga Journal, given to me by my mom, called “Forgiveness Heals.” There will be a companion post, a writing exercise about forgiving myself, sometime soon.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I stayed silent too long, spoke too softly to be heard, gave in too quickly.
My kindergarten classroom stretched along an endless hallway. There was a finger-painting station, a corner with cardboard building blocks, a book nook, a playhouse with a kitchen. Trim along the ceiling had numbers, one for each day of the school year, and we would hold a little classroom celebration every time we hit a number ending in zero. We sang, and drew, and played tag at recess. Once a week, I would leave the class and go down the hall to talk with the school psychologist. Even then, my parents knew something was wrong.
I’m sorry I didn’t tell her – in her office with reassuring colors and a calm far removed from the kindergarten class – that there had been some mistake, that my bowl-cut should have been reserved for a boy, could I trade in my button-down shirts for pigtails, please?

