My Apology

This blog is just for me. It's not about anybody else. These are my feelings about myself and I need to own them.

I need to apologize.

I need to apologize to all my human brothers and sisters for letting you down.

I just turned 41.

I wasn't blind. I wasn't unaware. I didn't think Donald Trump would win but I also knew it'd be a close race.

I knew what our country was like.

And I failed you.

I failed us.

It was like I was hoping that if I behaved like everyone was equal then that would be reality. Well, I guess what I really meant was then that would be my reality, emphasis on the "my".

I'm planning on going to the Women's March on Portland the day after the inauguration. It will be my first march but it shouldn't be.

I should've been marching for years.

I may have been voicing my opinions all my life but I should've been speaking louder. I should've been using a megaphone or a microphone or the writing skills that God gave me. I spent a long time making things up to go on the page and I still love that. But, my own thoughts and my own words and my own reality should've accompanied it. My own hopes for our universe. My own hopes for our country.

I've been selfish.

I've written about what's most interested me.

Mostly fiction. Mostly funny. A little smut.

But years without anything meaningful.

I've tried to give people a means of escape and that has real merit. But I needed to do more than that.

I needed to try and help make the world something that people needed to escape from a little less.

I've always believed that was my purpose but I stopped looking for it at some point and started just thinking of myself.

I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry that I was so selfish for so long. I'm so sorry that I lived in a world that was so one-sided and I didn't really do anything to stop it.

I'm so ashamed.

Every time I write a blog or work on my book or write something down about how we can't live like this anymore, I can feel my stomach roll a little and know that my nausea is my own shame.

I can't imagine being on the other side of privilege and not being at least a little pissed that it took so many people so long so say something. And that gives me shame as well.

I wonder if I've hurt my friends that aren't white with my silence. And I know if I have, it's totally justified.

And I apologize. I wish I could apologize everyday for my silence. I've thought of you as my friends. I've cared so much for you. And I've let you down. Not because I'm so powerful that I alone can change the world but because it's the right thing to do and I haven't been doing it.

I can't let this shame stop me now, though. It may make me feel like a partial hypocrite for taking so long to do the right thing but I'd rather do the right thing now even if it means I feel like shit about my past inactivity than only feeling better because I'm ignoring my own truth.

It's officially after midnight, so I can say:

Today is a new day.

Today, I am a new me.

Today and going forward, I pledge to be the me that uses her voice for change. I pledge to be the me that is brave enough to speak up for what she believes is right. I pledge to be someone I'm really proud of and I pledge to have higher standards for what makes me proud.