Apologizing

So last week or so I made a Big Mistake, and I had to apologize, very rapidly, to a complete stranger who I had made very unhappy.
To make the apology sincere, I sent it from my personal e-mail account, and included my real name.

If the person who I apologized to googles my e-mail address, she will very quickly know who I am, and where to find me, and she could make my life a complete hell

But that is what I owe her.

Because I caused her such distress, to give her back the power that she feels I exerted over her, my apology has to be a transfer of power.

Thinking about it has been fun, because it occurs to me that at the heart of every real apology is a transferal of power, and without a transferal of power, there's no apology.