I live in a place called Sorryland. (No, it's not in Canada. Humph.) My little house there is quite costly—I've been paying in salt water and sand granules from an egg timer—so I've been trying to find a way out of the contract. It's this whole big thing.
It's a gated community. I'm still not sure who locks it up at night, or if it locks from the inside or outside. I've been asking around, but the neighborhood's a bit wary of any kind of questioning or conflict.
My neighbors and I share a common vocabulary. "Sorry" is everywhere, as you might imagine, given the name.
My neighbors and I tend to meet unexpectedly at doorways, greet each other with a jumbled exclamation (e.g. "Sorry!" or "Uh...you as well! Wait, I meant—"), and then skitter away in the wrong directions, muttering under our breaths about our good intentions. That's probably our vocab at its least malignant, but most regular. At its worst? We blame things ourselves for things that aren't our fault before we let them fall on the shoulders of others.
Some people call us pushovers. Some people call us kind. We're the nice people. We're the cowards. We're the I-don't-know-what-else-to-do-in-this-situation-ers.
A lot of us who live here signed the contract for the security benefits, but I'm beginning to wonder if constantly apologizing for my imperfect existence is really worth it. I just learned that the world is pretty big. There's plenty of room in the universe and it's okay to take up space, though the handbook said otherwise.
Anyway, I'm thinking about moving out of that gated community. It might be hard at first. I may need to stay with friends while I'm looking for a new place. But it'll be okay.
