Ten years ago, during these very same cold winter months, I invited a friend over to our house one evening. I sat across from her in our living room…my eyes fighting to look up from the floor…and I asked her for forgiveness.

Several months earlier, I had hurt her.

Not because of something that I did…but because of something that I didn’t do. I stayed silent when she needed my voice. I stood distant when she needed my support. I cowered away when she needed my bravery.

Ten years ago, I failed my friend.

I failed her because – sometimes – our quiet nothings can do even more harm than our loudest somethings.

Ten years ago, when I finally found the courage to let my eyes meet hers…I felt every ounce of my humility rise within me. I felt everything I had done and everything I had failed to do. And I felt the only two words that were left to be said…

“I’m sorry”

And as the words came out of my mouth…I felt that tear form in the corner of my eye; the tear that you try to hold back. The tear that so often marks the beginning. The tear that sometimes means the end.

My friend reached across the couch to me, grabbing my hands in hers, and quietly said “It’s okay, Gen…let’s forgive each other”

My two words had somehow torn down a wall between us. My two words had brought us closer together. My two words had set us both free.

We spent the next little while acknowledging our pain and asked forgiveness for our collective wrong doings. We put all of our honesty and all of our vulnerability and all of our frailty on the table…and together…we built something with it; we built our new story.

I reflect back on that moment a lot because it was one of my greatest lessons in humility. It was a lesson in what it meant to just say, “I was wrong…I’m sorry” and to allow someone else to hold that truth in the palm of their hands.

It can be a really hard thing to do sometimes.

But I think that the world breaks a little bit every time a relationship is lost to pride. When we don’t allow ourselves to break open…the entire world breaks around us as a consequence.

Every time we choose to be right instead of choosing to be happy…something is inherently lost in the struggle. And, eventually, we all end up losing. We lose our integrity…we lose our connection…and most of all…we lose each other.

And the thing of it is…we’re just imperfect people loving these imperfect relationships.

We are filled with insecurities…and hurts…and a whole bunch of bruises we’ve gathered along the way. So we tend to break things and lose things and take things for granted.

But we can also fix things. We’re really good at fixing things.

Sometimes we take the broken pieces of our hearts and tape them back together again.

Sometimes we hurt and we wait and we love until the gaping holes inside of us begin to heal.

Other times, we sit quietly in a room together with the only two words we have left to say.

“I’m sorry”

And, if you’re really lucky…those two words just might be enough.

photo credit // www.camimarlowe.com