When Your Apology Isn't Accepted (Audio)

ITP # 14: Have you ever apologized for something and had your apology not accepted? Or worse yet, not acknowledged? Tune in this week as Anush deals with forgiveness, conflict resolution, and "moving on"... if that's possible.
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When Your Apology Isn't Accepted

There's something that has been weighing heavily on me for the past several months, and on Friday, it finally came to a head.  Because you know I share everything here on my blog, I wanted to write about it, thinking that it would be good to hear your ideas, reflection, insights as well.  It's all about forgiveness, and hurt, and apologizing, and then ...have you ever thought about what happens when your apology is not accepted?  Here's what happened.   

My coworkers and I used to put in a couple dollars a week to play the lottery. My one coworker was in charge of the winnings which we would keep to buy more tickets when the jackpots got big.  We would always communicate via email.  So when one day the jackpot winnings were at an all time high, my coworker (let's call him Ray) sent out an email:  "Shall we use some of our booty to purchase more chances for tonight's drawing?"  In regular form, our group sent back responses saying yes.  Now, mind you, Ray has always been very jovial, fun, and has always had a good sense of humor.  Playing on his use of the word "booty" I wrote back, "I agree! An idle booty is the devil's playground".  You know that old saying, right?  Idle hands are the devil's playground.  All I meant was yes, let's put the money to good use.

I thought nothing of it.  The following day, though, my friend was very quiet.  All day.  When I was leaving, I asked, "Ray, what's up?"  No response.  "Ray?"  He responded, "Nothing, just busy."  Okay, maybe he's a little moody.  I thought nothing of it and off I went for the weekend.  On Monday, when Ray walked in, I greeted him with my usual good morning.  Nothing.   No response.  And the several hours later, I received an email from him. "I thought about it all weekend, and I don't know what you meant by your comment, but I will no longer be handling the money for the lottery."  WHAT?  Seriously.  I went back to re-read my email to see if I said anything wrong.  Nope.  So I wrote back.  I explained what I meant...that it meant nothing.  I was trying to just make a play on the words he had used.  Obviously, I said, it was misunderstood and if I had offended him by it, I was truly sorry.  I explained that he was my friend!  We had known one another for 10 years.  And I would NEVER do or say anything to hurt him.  And if I had, again, I apologize.  I waited for a response.  It never came.

And then there was silence.  I thought, okay, maybe he didn't get to the email yet.  He seemed busy.  I waited.  One day, two days. Still nothing.  You have to know that we work in an office.  I have a cubicle, and there are four of us that share a quad of cubicles.  So we're right there in each other's space.  The silence from him, flowed over to my other coworker, his friend who announced via email that he had decided that he was no longer going to play the lottery and wanted out.   I had decided that I didn't want to be part of it any longer either because losing friendships over something so petty wasn't worth it.  And within a day, our lottery group that had been playing for the past 4-5 years disbanded. The small amount of winnings we had were all divided up among us players and that was that.

 But the silence continued. Our department has always prided themselves on being close with one another.  We're the "fun" group of our office.  Yet now, this whole thing had thrown a wrench in the works.  Days turned to weeks, a week turned into a month.  I would literally come to work, say good morning in my quad. Other than a "good morning" from the other two (not Ray), not one would talk to me until I said, "good night guys" at the end of the day when the same two would say goodnight.  The third coworker was not involved in it at all, but because he works for Ray, if Ray ain't talkin' he wasn't either.  

Anyways, it was incredibly uncomfortable to say the least.  Of course there are other people in our office that I would talk to, but this was always there for me.  If you know me, you know that peace is a big part of me. My heart has to be at peace or I'm not okay.  This all started back in June.  My boss had been on vacation.  When she returned, she felt it.  She asked me what was going on.  And I told her.  I shared with her my email that I had sent...Ray's response, and my apology.  She thought that was really strange.  She didn't understand.  She told me she would handle it..that she didn't want this type of thing going on, but I asked her to please give it more time.  I just cringed at the idea of her calling us in.  As I had been the odd man out here, I thought it was just going to put more of a strain on things.  I told her that I would like to handle it.  She was getting ready to go on a business trip.  She said okay and that she'd check back in after her returned in 3 weeks.

By now over a month had gone by.  The silence was taking it's toll on me.  I couldn't sleep.  I discussed it with my husband, my mom, my daughter.  I didn't understand why he couldn't accept my apology.  I didn't understand how this person that I thought was my friend, would think that I would say something to offend him.  My health started suffering for it.  I had to go to the doctor who said my stomach problems were from stress.  I even started looking for another job.  

With my boss gone, I had incentive to get this worked out before her returned.  All the while I had been praying about this.  Asking God to open Ray's heart so he could see inside mine.  I thought I'd try again.  That Monday, I wrote him another email.   I asked if he would have a few minutes to talk to me.  I told him I understood he was upset, but I didn't understand why...and again, obviously, I said, it was because of my initial comment, but i truly didn't mean anything of it...and again, I apologized.  Would he have time this afternoon to resolve this?  I received no response.  The whole day I waited.  The following day I came to work, and he had responded.  He said there was nothing to talk about.  We should just allow time to take it's course.  That was it.  And he left on a 3 week vacation.

This whole thing has been very stressful and difficult for me.  I am a Christian.  I don't take that lightly.   Those that I talked to about it told me I had nothing to apologize about.  But I didn't have a problem with that.  We're all human.  We are not perfect.  And if I had hurt someone, I had no problem in apologizing for my offense.  But the difficult part of this whole equation was that I had done my part, but my apology wasn't accepted.  And not only was it not accepted, it was ignored.  I started thinking about apologies.  When we forgive someone we do it not for them but for us.  I started working on forgiving him....so that I could start dealing with what I was feeling because as the weeks were going on, getting up and going to work was getting more and more difficult.  At work, I continued trying.  I continued saying good morning.  I continued saying good night.  

When my boss returned she didn't mention it.  A couple more weeks went by.  And then two weeks ago we all went out to lunch with a client.  Ray was late, and when he arrived, the only seat left was across from me.  Dread.  Everything was fine with the group.  My boss was sitting next to Ray, I joined in the conversation with the others in our department, and Ray directed his conversation to everyone but me.  And my boss picked up on it.  That afternoon she called me into her office to find out what happened while she was gone.  I explained the attempt.  Shared the email with her, and Ray's non-response.  I told her I didn't know what else to do.  I had tried.  

A few days later, my boss called Ray in.  The door was shut.  And they were in there a long while.  When he came out, he went back to his desk and continued working.  The following morning, I asked my boss if she had spoken to him.  She was busy.  Yes, she said, she had.  She could talk to me about it sometime when she had more time.  In the meantime, she said, Ray was supposed to talk to me.

This past Thursday, nearly a week after that (and three months after the initial incident), as I was packing up for the day, Ray came up and asked if I would have time on Friday, after lunch, to talk.  "You want to talk to me?", I said.  "Sure."  The following day he approached me in the afternoon.  He suggested we go outside to talk, so down the elevator we went, outside to sit in the plaza.  He started out saying, "I don't know where to start with this.  The boss says you're upset."  You can imagine my inner reaction to that, right?  I mean here's a man that has made such an effort to ignore me for the past 3 months...and he says we're talking cuz I'm upset?  So if he didn't know where to start, I would just have to help him.  And I did.

I think God opened my mouth for me.  I told him that he knew very well what he was doing, because being cruel was not something that anyone did naturally.   I reminded him that I had apologized 3 times, yet he had chosen not to even discuss or acknowledge that apology.  I told him I didn't understand what I had done or said that offended him so badly.  I asked him to explain.  And as I always do when I am frustrated, I started to cry.  To which he replied "Don't take it personally like that....you don't have to be upset."  Really?  Apparently, my comment had made him feel that I was questioning how the money from the lottery funds were handled.  Go figure.  Although he understood that I had apologized, he said that sometimes people say things and then apologize after but the damage had been done.  I asked, did he feel this was my case?  We went around and around  He told me that he was sorry that he had made me feel so bad.  I asked him if he accepted my apology.  His response took me aback.  He said, "Well, I've learned to move on."  I told him that wasn't the same thing.  He said, "I can forgive...but it's going to be hard to forget."  I was stunned.  Forget what?  But then I thought about all I had been through too.  And I conceded.  "Okay I said.  I get that, because I can forgive you too....but I will have a hard time forgetting as well."  

I think the thing that really hurt me the most about this entire stupid thing was the fact that this is a person that I considered my friend.  Not a dear friend, but this is someone  that I see at work 5 days a week.  I thought that after 10 years of working together, that I knew him...and he would know me.   I told him that he should know by now, that I would never want to do anything to hurt a friend.  Intentionally or unintentionally.  And there was also hurt there because I thought I knew him. I wouldn't think that a friend would intentionally want to hurt me either.  We don't do that.  Yet he had.  And he knew it.  When I called him on it, he had no answer.

So how did it end?  Well, he asked how we should move on.  I told him I would like us to be civil.  To start saying hello again.  We didn't need to be best friends, but we should be courteous.  It will take time we both agreed.  I told him that I had prayed for him.  That God would open his heart to understand mine.  He said, "Well, maybe it worked."  That was it.  We took the elevator back up.  At the end of the day, I packed it up and said, "Good night."  "Good night," he said.  That was the first thing he has said to me in the office in 3 months.  It's a start.

I am relieved that it's over...that it's somewhat resolved.  Although I know things will ever be the same between us.  I can forgive, though it's difficult to understand why someone would want to hurt someone by not accepting their apology.  Perhaps he didn't know me as well as I thought he did.  Who knows.  All I can do is keep praying and let it go.  I found this nice quote on forgiveness by Mark Twain.

"Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it." - Mark Twain

The violet has no choice but to be crushed by the heel though.  I did have a choice to allow Ray to crush me with his actions.  And I don't know why it was so stressful for me and why I allowed it to hurt me so much.  Because truly, in my  heart, I KNEW that I hadn't done or said anything to hurt him.  So why?  Why couldn't I just let it go knowing that I had done my best to resolve the situation?  Why not just say, "hey not everyone has to like me...."  y'know?  I'm still taking a look at that one.  At what point do we need to stop apologizing?  In my case, I think it was more of a character issue.  It was important to me that he understand that I wasn't like that.  I would do something to hurt him.  Yet, looking at it from the other side now, obviously, I had.  I suppose Ray's not acknowledging my apology was his way of punishing me.  But in turn, wasn't it more of a punishment to the self to have to put yourself through purposely working so hard to hurt the one you're upset with?  Anyways, these are all things that I'm pondering.  What do you think?  I'd love to hear from you. 

Getting Along with Ourselves (Audio)

ITP Episode #2: Welcome to Inside the Pomegranate where Anush Avejic uses applied Christianity to take a look at daily life through personal reflection.  Whether it’s reaching out to the homeless, gardening, parenting, surviving cancer, or wellness it’s all here - Inside the Pomegranate!
This is the audio version of Getting Along with Ourselves.
On this weeks episode:  Victims or successes?  Lets take a look at how these perceptions of ourselves effect the way we react toward one another.
Produced by Suzie Shatarevyan for epostle.net
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Getting Along with Ourselves

This week, our In His Shoes homeless outreach prepared our monthly dinner for the residents of Ascencia, Glendale's homeless shelter. We are in our 6th year serving the homeless on Skid Row and we recently partnered with Ascencia and will be providing a homecooked meal to the residents there on a monthly basis.  There are families that live there,including young children.  We operate solely on donations, and our crew gets to work in the kitchen and we just have a great time, cooking, visiting and feeding the people.  There's something so fulfilling about feeding people, isn't there?  Especially when those people are truly hungry.  It's a blessing for all of us  to be part of this ministry.  All those that live there are always  so grateful.  They are sweet to us.  And there are also people that are not residents who stop by for services as well.   This time around, one of those people was a young mother with 6 children who was talking to the director.   While she was talking to him,  her children were playing in the play area at the shelter, completely comfortable with their surroundings. You could tell they were familiar with the shelter.  I asked if they'd like to stay for dinner, to which the kids all nodded an excited YES!  But mom said they needed to go, but would take it with them if possible.  We packed up food for the family, poured juice for the kids and off they  went.  And this got me to thinking about this young family.  What was their homelife like?  Did they have a home? How will their childhood impact their lives?  Will they view people's kindness toward them in a positive way? or will they grow up with poverty in their being feeling like charity cases.   Lots of questions.  And so that's kind of what my pomegranate seed is about today:  Things that impact our lives,  Bullying.  Ethnic identity.  Entitlement.   Wow...how did I get here from there?  Well, here it is:

Children can be cruel, and so where does that come from?  I know we're not born with it.  And I'm not even sure that it comes from the home, because although that is a factor, there are also outside influences like friends (and their parents), TV, social media, etc.

We've heard a lot about bullying these past several years as YouTube videos have popped up telling the world the stories of  its victims.  Bullying isn't something new though.  It was around back when I was a kid too.  And I'm pretty sure it hurt just as much back then as it does today.  The difference is that we didn't think of doing anything about it, other than going to our parents who would calm us down with the "Don't pay attention to them.  They're just jealous," speech, right?  You know the one.  (Do you use that on your kids??  I know you do, right?)  : )

Kids are usually picked on for being different.  Fat, skinny, nerdy, gay, short, tall, smart, not so smart, it doesn't matter at all.  It's these little differences that make a HUGE difference not only in the child's day-to-day, but in their lives as well.   All the bully needs is a following - people who want to get in with them so they can avoid being the brunt of the bullying - and a subject.

My two nieces - proud hyes!

But how about when you're picked on for being the same?  Or at least trying to be the same?  not one ethnicity against the other, but against our own ethnic group - Armenians. Here's what I'm getting at:  I have a nine-year-old niece who wants more than anything to embrace her Armenian culture.  She is sensitive and sweet, cute, smart, funny, you get the idea. (Can you tell I love her to bits?)  Her problem?  She doesn't look Armenian, and she doesn't have an IAN on the end of her name. My brother-in-law is not Armenian.  Blonde hair, blue eyes and freckles, my niece is every bit as Armenian as her tormentors.  Despite the fact that she tells them she is Armenian, offers up proof by throwing out what Armenian words or facts she knows, this group of Armenian girls denies her her ethnicity.  They refuse to acknowledge her.  She has asked my sister to go to her school and tell the kids that she is Armenian!  And my sister has spoken to them all, yet just to be mean, they continue.  I've asked my niece, why not play with the other kids?  I'm sure there are others in your class who aren't Armenian?  Well, that's true, she could...but it's important to her to be a part of the Armenian group because this is what is identifies with.

My daughter had a similar experience when she was in high school.  She didn't have the requisite IAN or YAN attached to her name either.  Yet she too is proud of her Armenianness.  She actually knew more about our people than her bullies who were all immigrants to this country from the homeland.  She knew about our Orthodox Christian faith and our history, whereas her bullies were Armenian by name, clothing, cars and cologne only. They would tell her she wasn't Armenian because her father wasn't.  (Excuse me?  What about her mama!?)

And on a different level, I too have experience this as well.  I used to teach English at a private Armenian school.  I've taught kindergarteners up to 8th graders (and dealt with all their parents).  I speak Armenian and I DO have the requisite IAN.   On more than one occasion, I've been asked if I'm from Bierut because of my dialect.
"No," I say.  "I'm born here."
"Here is where?" they ask.
"Here.  America."
"Oh, well.  You're not really Armenian then, " they joke...but you can tell what's behind that little joke.  Seriously!  So hello?  If I were from Beirut, would THAT suddenly verify that I'm Armenian?  Wouldn't that make me Lebanese?  Get a clue people!  Armenianness is not in the name, it's in the heart and the soul.

So why are we like this?  And where did this all come from?  As an ethnic group, we are so small as it is, shouldn't we be embracing one another and holding on to what we have rather than excluding, bullying, and trying to categorize one another?  Does it matter if you're an America-hye, Barska-hye, Bolsa-hye, Iraqa-hye, Beirutahye?  Shouldn't a hye be a hye?
I know the deep-lying factor is the genocide, right?   But what makes us think that we are any better than anyone else? Or that rules apply to everyone else except us.  Is it the bully thing -  trying to pump oneself up by bringing someone else down?  I'm not so sure. And forgive me -- I happen to live in an area with an abundance of Armenians so understand where I'm coming from.  I'm not trying to generalize but making an observation of what's it's like in my area.    And i do love my people.  But why can't we see that we're all part of a bigger picture?  Well, it did happen, the other night, we had an opportunity to ALL be together. All kinds of hyes and odars together in one place just enjoying the evening and having a great time.  Believe it?.  The plot thickens!  Here's what happened;

Have you all heard of the movie, "Lost and Found in Armenia" directed by Gor Kirakosian?  We live not far from Glendale, and when this movie first came out, my husband and I went to see it at the theater.  Not a small theater, mind you.  The regular feature film theater.  It's a funny film starring Jamie Kennedy and a whole wonderful cast of characters.  A cute story and very funny.  And one of the best parts?  Watching the credits roll at the end of the movie, seeing all the Armenian names.  My husband and I play a game during the credits called Serbs vs. Armenians.  I look for the IAN/YAN endings, and he looks for the IC's.  We try to see which one of our peeps have the most representation in the film.  He didn't stand a chance on this film! (which I loved!) Well anyway... I liked the movie so much I thought it would be great to bring my mom to see it.  After two attempts of sold out tickets, we finally got seats.  With school out my sister and nieces came along too and we had a girls night out.  The lines to go into that movie were long!  Over 100 feet.  Even though it was a Monday night, the theater was packed.  I don't know what it was about that evening but it was great.  We were among other Armenians that we didn't know...and they weren't staring us down in that way that only they can do!  Everyone was so excited, and happy...We were all there to support this film. It didn't matter whether the director was from Armenia, Beirut or Iraq.  The film was by an Armenian and we were proud.  One non-Armenian woman came up to me while I was in line asking what the line up was for.  I told her about the movie, which is an independent film.  She asked, "And THIS line is for that movie???"  I told her we were proud, and most all of us in the line were there to support the film.  I told her she should get a ticket and see it too.

My nieces were in the moment as well, feeling like part of the crowd.  We got into the theater, got situated, the movie started and there we were, all together, in the dark, one people.  Laughing.  Having fun.  I loved hearing my neices' laughter t as they got the jokes, as they saw the quirky nature of their people on the screen.  The Armenian scenery was beautiful.  There in the dark the whole audience was one.  United by this fun movie and a pride in belonging to one another.  The movie ended, the lights went up.  As we left the theater we passed the new line up of people waiting to see the next showing. And I think that too lead to the pride of the evening.  Seeing that a movie by one of our own was a success.  Young and old, new to this country and not so new..they were all lined up.  I think the feeling of the evening had to do with that success.  That night, as a people, WE were a success!   As we do all too often, as a people, we come together when things aren't going well...to protest, or to commemorate the genocide.  Victims.  But maybe the act of gathering together to claim a part of this film as our own changed something inside us...and for one evening, we were all one.  And it was so good!!  I think that's what we need more of.  To celebrate our Armenianness...our oneness with one another through our SUCCESSES!

So what are your thoughts on this?  I'd love to hear from you.  Please leave your comments here on the blog.

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