I Wanted to Live in a Mountain,

thefemcritique:

“I’m an apology addict. Most women I know are similarly afflicted. We think our value as females is dependent on being literally and figuratively pliable to the point of contortions that would make a pretzel or a porn star jealous. And in so doing, we not only devalue our actual important and genuine apologies (“I’m sorry I slept with your brother.”) but posit ourselves as being ever in error, constantly over-speaking, overspending, over-laughing, over-crying, overeating, over-existing.

Words have the power to form our experience and thus our reality. The more unnecessary apologies we make, the more we unwittingly convince ourselves that we are at fault for everything — even a vicious crime in which we were the terrified victim.
 
We are a generation that arrived pre-empowered thanks to the work of our moms and grandmothers and great-grandmothers. We’re smart, we’re ambitious, we’re hardworking, we’re determined, we’re badass, we’re brilliant — and we’re still so very, very sorry.
 
I wonder when we’ll stop apologizing for existing.”

Such a relevant article. I have found myself doing the same thing. Click through to read women’s apology stories.