Sorry, Not Sorry

What happened when I stopped apologizing

I used to say “sorry” more times a day than I could count.

Sorry for interrupting.
Sorry for the mess.
Sorry for asking.
Sorry for needing something.

The words slipped out before I even realized they were there. Second nature, a reflex, muscle memory. A lifetime of softening my presence, of making myself more palatable, of making sure I was easy to love and easier to leave behind.

I’m not sure when it started.

Maybe it was growing up as the eldest daughter, where I learned early on that my role was to manage, to mediate, to mother. Where my needs came second, where my mistakes felt bigger, where I felt the unspoken pressure to be the strong one.

Maybe it is being a woman of color, where the world told me, in ways both subtle and sharp, that I should not be too loud, too opinionated, too assertive, too anything. Where I watched my mother, my tias, and the women before me swallow their frustration, hold their tongues, and bend themselves to everyone else’s needs.

Maybe it is being a people pleaser, trained to smooth things over before they even had the chance to wrinkle. To be likable, agreeable, to say “yes” before I even knew what I wanted. Because rejection felt like punishment, and abandonment felt like proof that I had failed at being easy enough to keep.

Maybe that is how I learned to shrink. To be smaller, softer, more accommodating. To apologize for existing in any way that might be inconvenient to someone else.

I have apologized for things that did not require forgiveness.

For having feelings.
For setting boundaries.
For being tired.
For asking for more.
For changing my mind.
For not responding fast enough.
For taking up space.

I have apologized in advance, as a precaution, before I even knew if I had done anything wrong. I have apologized out of habit, out of fear, out of the aching need to be understood, to be accepted, to be kept.

I apologized so much that I got second-hand embarrassment for the version of myself that was scared to exist. The version of myself that shrunk to the point of invisibility. The version of myself that did not align with who I thought myself to be.

So, I stopped apologizing. Consciously, often with hesitation, I refused. And everything I feared would happen did.

When I stopped apologizing, people changed.

When I stopped shrinking myself, some people did not know what to do with me.

The ones who were used to my quiet compliance, my constant availability, my habit of making myself small for their comfort—some of them pulled away. They mistook my self-respect for selfishness. They mistook my boundaries for betrayal.

But it was more than that.

For so long, I had been the one bringing people up. The connector. The dreamer. The one who saw more for them than they saw for themselves. I was always offering my knowledge, my resources, my network. Always pushing people to take chances, to step into something bigger, to believe in possibilities they hadn’t considered.

And I loved that. It brought me joy, until it didn’t.

Because beneath that generosity, there was something else, something I hadn’t admitted to myself.

I was buying their love. Investing in them with the subconscious hope that if I showed them all the things I could do, all the doors I could open, all the ways I could expand their world, they would see my value. That they would choose me, not just for what I provided, but for who I was.

But it didn’t work that way.

Because the moment I stopped overextending, the moment I stepped back to see if they would show up for me without the incentives, without the effort being one-sided, I learned the truth.

Some never did.

And for a while, it made me question myself. Made me wonder if I was doing something wrong by taking up the space I had long denied myself.

But then, I found my people.

Some of them had been here all along.

The ones who never needed me to shrink.
The ones who loved me in my fullness.
The ones who didn’t flinch when I spoke my mind, who didn’t leave when I said no, who didn’t make me feel like I had to apologize for being myself.

Let me be clear: I am not refusing accountability.

I will always apologize when I am wrong, when I have hurt someone, and when my actions call for it. Because accountability is not the same as self-erasure. Respect is not the same as people-pleasing.

The difference now is that my apologies mean something.

They are no longer currency to buy someone’s comfort at my expense. They are no longer tools to make myself more digestible. They are not reflexes. I do not throw them out just to keep the peace.

Now, when I say “I’m sorry,” I mean it.

And when I don’t say it, I mean that too.

I’m learning that losing people I wasn’t fully myself around is its own kind of liberation.

Yes, I grieved the friendships and relationships that faded when I stopped being the easy, accommodating version of myself. I missed the comfort of being liked, of being the person people could count on to always say yes, to always put them first, to always make space for them even when they wouldn’t do the same for me.

But the grief was temporary.

The feeling of becoming unburdened unleashed an overwhelming sense of freedom—a shedding, a clearing, a necessary loss to make room for something better.

When I stopped apologizing for who I am, I did more than grow into myself. I found the people who see me, who celebrate me, who meet me where I am.

Not everyone will like me. But for the first time, I do.

And that’s enough.