I called up a friend last night to apologize for something I said three weeks ago, and this friend laughed at me. Of course I became outraged. My inner monologue was screaming, How dare he laugh at me when I am trying to set things right? He felt my indignation; I'm not really good at hiding stuff like that.

Friend: "Alysia, you've said way more hurtful things than that and you've never called me up to apologize before. Why shouldn't I laugh?"
Me: "Because this time I didn't really mean it. The other stuff was probably true."

Of course I asked for examples, a demand he could not fulfill. He'd probably be equally outraged if he knew I was doing this but I am trying to sort out why those things that hurt were let slide? Why was it okay? And why was my apology considered so strange? It was a flash moment in the day when I realized that I really did need to apologize, and when I mentioned that to a friend of mine, she asked why I would bother apologizing. Her reasoning was that if he was my friend he'd understand. I answered in typical Alysia fashion, "I don't know. I'm having a rare moment of heart and brain agreement, so I'm going with it, even if I don't know why they agree." I felt he deserved that apology. I was wrong, and, because he is my friend, I can be wrong without injury to my pride. We're all wrong sometimes, yet it is rare that one of us are willing to own up to it. "It's just different sides of the same truth." "My reality is a variation on your reality." Please don't try to feed me that bullshit. Sometimes, we're wrong. Why didn't he tell me and why was it unacceptable that I confessed that I wasn't infallible?

Just for a laugh: I got a paper back that I had written without looking at what was required for the assignment, thinking "oh well, I can lose 10%". I got that assignment back today: A. My prof raved about my interpretation of the requirements. I love how in English "requirements" are a load of crap other than word count.