Contrition

Reasonably often in my life, I look back at past relationships, and I am sorry for how I behaved. Not only romantic relationships, although I admit that generally those are the ones I look back on. As I grow older, I put a lot of effort into understanding myself: how I do things, why I do things, what I think about things, etc. In doing so, it's amazing how often I realize what must've been the motivation behind past behaviors; sometimes not only my own, but those of the other person as well. For the most part it's a pretty great thing. I'm proud of the things I've been able to come to terms with, and I'm glad that I understand my baggage. My hope is to keep perspective in order to better advise others, should I ever have the opportunity. Plus any breakthrough I have keeps me one step ahead of going into therapy. I'd like to see how far I can get without professional help.

The interesting part of all this is that when I have these revelations, I find myself wanting to contact the other person in question, and tell them all the things I realized. I want to apologize and explain my actions to them. I want them to know that I understand it now, and that I'm sorry they had to put up with whatever they put up with. Or didn't, I suppose. The existence of the Internet makes this a particularly interesting proposition, given that I am actually in contact with a fairly large percentage of people from my past through things like email and Myspace. If I want to, I can message them with my apologies. The question, though, is whether or not I should. I guess I wonder what their reaction will be. Maybe they've forgotten all about it. Maybe they really just don't care anymore. Maybe they'll say thank you. Maybe they'll come away with realizations of their own. What would you do if some person from your past suddenly contacted you and said "Man, you know, I was thinking about it, and I realize that I was pretty crazy some of the time. Sorry about that. Thanks for putting up with it"? What would you think? That this person wants to be a part of your life again? That they're still a wacko? The truth of the matter is that I still care about anyone I ever cared about, and I want them to know it. I want them to know that I'm sorry for anything I did that was upsetting or confusing or hurtful. I don't hurt people conciously. Thanks to marriage, I've come to realize that sometimes I do say things that are below the belt; that some part of me knows will hit where it hurts...but I realize after the fact, and I feel horrible for doing it. And I'm going to try my damndest not to do it in the future.

I had a dream last night about some old friends. They're not long-lost, particularly, but we haven't been in contact for several months, either. I was involved with one of them for a little while, and it was a strange situation. In the dream we were just trying to communicate and we were failing. And then I woke up, and suddenly realized, in part, what our problem had been all along. More than that, I realized that it was still a problem for him, and has probably held him back from many things in life. Should I tell him these things? Would it serve its purpose?

There's another old flame floating around. My relationship with him has been a sounding board for me as adult: something I've held up in order to examine my behavior, or sometimes something that I look at through the lens of other realizations. I've learned a lot about my behavior in relationships, period...there are, of course, many common threads. With him, though, his reactions tell me so much about how I affected other people. And I'm just so sorry about it. It's not that I want to go back, or that I carry a torch...he's married, so am I. I'm happy with the here and now. I just would like to tell him why I was the way I was, and that I'm sorry it was problematic for us. But I think he'd just think I was nuts.

Is it simply too late for me to be contrite?