“Sorry, it’s just soup.”
I said that to my sister one Wednesday this fall.
She had stayed for lunch after our coffee. I set a bowl in front of her at my own kitchen table. It was my mother’s recipe, and it was good.
She looked up at me. “Why are you sorry? It’s soup.”
I laughed, but I started to listen to myself after that. By Friday I had said sorry for the dishes in the sink. I’d said sorry for our old recliner, too, and for going to bed early.
Somewhere along the way, a lot of us learned to say sorry for things that never needed an apology. So I wrote down the things to stop apologizing for after 60. There are 30 of them, and number 30 matters most of all.