Years ago when I was teaching high school I did an incredibly dickish thing. I was covering another teacher’s class because she had an appointment. She and I were both first year teachers and around the same age but we had very different approaches. She wore a suit to work every day and she had strict rules and she moved through the curriculum textbook like it was gospel. I wore flouncy skirts, smart ass tshirts, stripey knee socks, and no shoes in my classroom. I never checked the textbook out of the book room. We used original texts and books I brought in from the world. We didn’t learn poetry from dry dusty poets that made it through a curriculum committee. I brought in Charles Bukowski, Tupac, and Daphne Gottlieb. I always started with Watch Your Tense and Case to follow after the grammar unit.

When I showed up to sub her class I was scathing about the course materials. I was rude and dismissive of people wanting to follow the trodden path. I was so fucking out of line. We worked together for two years after that. She was frosty and barely civil with me the whole time. I felt bad the whole time. I knew why she didn’t like me and I knew I deserved it.

When I was leaving because I was heavily pregnant and unable to stay awake for a work day I finally had a moment alone with her in the staff room. I brought up that she didn’t like me. I don’t remember if she told me that she knew what I did or if I volunteered that I was pretty sure that I knew why. Either way I said that I was both arrogant and insecure when I subbed her class because I knew she was a kind of teacher I could never be. I know that she is closer to the ideal for what a teacher is supposed to be like and I was wrong to tear her down so I could feel better.

I remember watching her body sink with relief. She said that she wished that she had confronted me about it years ago because it was hard to dislike me. She had to really work at it because I was funny and hard working and generally a good person. I told her that shame had kept me from apologising and I didn’t want to leave with that on my conscious. We parted on good terms.

I think we all fuck up. I think we all owe people apologies.

This is on my mind because of a situation going on in the Scottish bdsm scene. Some day all the Fetlife stuff will land here and the whole story is available as it happened. For those of you who are sensibly not spending your life on that social media site the long story made short is that I tried to be friends with a local guy for a while. I will admit that part of what I liked about him was that he sold me lsd. The last time we spent much time together was our one attempt to trip together. He left a couple of hours into it in a weird way and he stole a small physical therapy device on his way out. I asked for it back repeatedly and he laughed at me. Our relationship ended when he had a shitty breakup with a girlfriend and I picked the girlfriend. I thought he was abusive in her direction. Later, after Noah died, he had a different girlfriend tell people all over Scotland and in other countries that I helped Noah drug him and attempt to rape him but he escaped. That was very seriously not a thing that was going to happen. He used a bunch of quotes from Noah’s writing and he claimed that a stalker was using those words in his direction. It was one of Noah’s whackjob posts about our weird Godhood/worship part of our relationship. Anyone who read the full post is fucking clear that Noah was only interested in me. He definitely was not stalking the lying liar who steals after his death. It was preposterous on its face.

At this point the later girlfriend is now talking about how badly she was abused and how that man is a terrible predator. Ok. Fine. I agree with her that the lying liar who steals is a problematic abusive man. The thing is, she reached out to people in other countries to warn them off of being my friend. I had someone turn down meeting me after years of online conversation because she was scared of me. I was going to meet her in a public place with my daughter and she didn’t feel comfortable because of what I might do to her. Because of the lies told by the girlfriend of the lying liar who steals. She might want to sit on her victim pedestal all day long but she was a tool to cause harm. She isn’t taking responsibility for that and it sits ill with me.

I am really tired of folks who act like the harm they cause doesn’t matter because they are the enabler. They were manipulated. They were forced. They were used.

You still fucking reached out to people and told them that I was dangerous. Your actions are on your fucking head. Be a grown up and accept responsibility for your behaviour. Lady, you owe me a fucking apology.