This was the subtitle in the movie “Love Story”.  As an impressionistic teen when this movie came out, I thought this was such a sweet concept—to meet that perfect someone and live such a perfect life that you never messed up and never had to say you were sorry. But as I grew up, I realized there was no such thing as the perfect someone or the perfect life.  We are all human and a constant work in progress, therefore we will never be perfect and we will always mess up at one time or another. Messing up is part of life.  Realizing we messed up and apologizing for it is a part of growing.  Admittedly, I have trouble with apologizing because I always felt it meant I was admitting to being wrong, and since that is seldom the case (insert laugh) I seldom felt the need to apologize!  But as I have messed up in life, I have learned from each experience and am beginning to understand a bit about the art of saying “I’m sorry”, and come to know it doesn’t always mean I am admitting I was wrong. 

Sometimes being sorry means we wish the whole act or conversation had never taken place.  Sometimes being sorry means that, although we believe what we said was correct and our argument valid, we regret the way in which we spoke.  And, the most difficult of “sorries” is when we realize we were totally wrong and out of line. But if we care enough about the person, we will put aside our pride and say those healing words.  When someone receives bad news, we freely and from the heart tell them “I’m so sorry”.  We should offer those words just as freely when an argument or disagreement occur.  I’ve heard of family members that live a good portion of their lives not speaking to each because of an act that happened years ago.  It’s so sad that a lifetime has been wasted when all it would have taken was for one party to say, “I’m sorry”.  This life is not perfect.  There is no such thing as the perfect partner, child, parent, brother or sister.  None of us are perfect. And that is why there should always be “I’m sorry’s” in our life.