Apologetic

I am apologetically myself.

This means that I will apologize in advance before walking into a museum with you, because I know that I will run away from you and go look at the things that I want to look at and spend entirely too much time reading signs and then excitedly explaining them to you.

This means that I will talk at length about my opinions on quantum gravity or string theory or predestination and at some point in the middle apologize for talking so much before taking a breath and continuing on to my next point.

This means that I will get preachy about the Incarnation and at the end, blush and apologize for being so loud, it's just that I have some feelings on the matter.

It means that I will stare off into space for minutes at a time while I think about something, then snap out of it and look around guiltily, hoping no one saw me mentally be in the place I want to be.

I find that I come at the world confirmed in the knowledge that I am a lot, and I'm sorry about that. I know that I have thoughts and feelings and I understand that they should be kept in my brain for the most part because they are overwhelming when they come out of me. When I care about something, it shows, maybe more than prudence would deem appropriate. I hear this when people give me that confusing compliment, "I love your energy." I'm going to make a joke about coffee to get me out of the moment, but I'm also going to wonder what expectations I upended to make you say that. Because, see, I know that I am a bundle of enthusiasm, and that's probably what you think you're complimenting, but I also know that you're complimenting the relatively constrained version of that enthusiasm that you saw behind the pulpit. Like saying that the Hoover Dam is the most impressive part of the Colorado River.

I also know that this comes across as self-deprecation, but I don't know how to tell anyone that it's not that. I apologize not because I have any intention of changing myself or, indeed, because I think that I should change myself, but because I, maybe uncharitably, assume that the fullness of myself is not what anyone wants to see. I am an immensely prideful person. I have an inordinately high opinion of myself. I am too good to be shared with the general public. And since I haven't mastered the line between confidence and arrogance, I settle on apologies. Sorry I'm so enthusiastic about existence. Sorry I'm so excited about the things I know and the things I want to know. Sorry I'm capable. Sorry I care.

At the end of the first class every semester with a professor who hasn't had me before, I go up and apologize in advance for asking so many questions and talking so much in class. I had an English professor in undergrad who stopped me in the middle of class and said, "This shouldn't be a conversation between me and you" and made me let someone else talk. Ever since that moment, I've tried to be aware of how much class time I'm occupying, but I don't always succeed. I tell my professors that I'll do my best, but they'll probably need to actively tell me to stop talking at some point. Usually, this is met with a smile and an affirmation that questions are good. My ethics professor, though, did not have the usual response. She said, "Have you read Alice In Wonderland? You remember the mouse? I'll let you know if we need to put you in a teacup."

My apologies have a root in a need for reassurance, I think; in a need to be told that I'm not wrong about myself, maybe. I hate being wrong. Or maybe it is a need for acceptance, a need for a teacup. "I know you're a lot. That's okay. We can handle that. The things that you worry are flaws, the things you think you need to struggle to tame on your own, they're not as insurmountable as you want them to be. You're just as special as everyone else is. And you're not alone in this."

A friend of mine recently told me, with a hint of sarcasm and at the end of a long conversation about my doubts and my fears and my tinny attempts at realism in the face of them, "Sorry the universe doesn't confirm your poor opinion of yourself."

Well. I mean. When you say it like that...

Sorry.