Being sorry is a complex concept. It feels like we created a world where being sorry is no longer complete on a purely internal, self-reflective level. No matter how genuinely apologetic you are for your malfeasance, it is up to those closest to you to let you know when your “apology” is acceptable enough.
When you graduate college south of the Mason-Dixon you have punched your ticket to wedding season. I don’t know who in their right mind said, “Oh yeah, we should let 21 year olds get married,” but alas here we are with a 50%+ divorce rate. Wedding season is, in short, a lot. Years of multi-fall-weekend parties. You begin to resent people for asking you to be a groomsman simply because you don’t have enough money or time for your 11th trip to Destin, Nashville, Charleston, or the worst…an Air B&B staycation in your own city. If you’ve never pissed away $600 on a weekend that took place two miles from your bed, you have no idea how mad I am typing this.
Fastfoward a bit and those newlyweds start to get reckless, or ambitious, with the intercourse. Out comes a kid. Bam bam bam. Every six months someone is shooting out a potato. You are required to care and required to express your sincere excitement even though you yourself don’t have kids or have too many kids… either way, you don’t really care as much as you ask.
Hit 33, 34, 35 years of age. You learn there is a large contigency of people in this world, mainly men, who are sleeping with women they did not marry. Divorce becomes the new theme. Seperations, failures, divorce, murders (according to Netflix). We all have that moment we realize our parents aren’t perfect, but how about that moment you realize your homie is fucking piece of shit? You ready to lose a friendship forever as he loses his family for his selfish actions?
Here I am now. 37 years of age. I learned that 2026 is the year of The Fire Horse. I don’t know what it means, but apparently it means all my friends are going to rehab. I guess divorce season starts at 33 but doesn’t exactly end. For now though, my mates have kept their mates but several are dozens of thousands down trying to sober up from their vice of choice, in a place they didn’t choose, in a state their family isn’t. Watching their journeys and trying to hold their hands as I can has been an interesting view of the on-going car wreck that is their lives. While a majority is self-induced, rarely is there absolutely no blame to share.
It seems that once you’ve been deemed a traitor, an addict, a failure, a disappointment, a liar… you’re kind of fucked. You don’t apologize your way out of a vice. People want to see you break. Your rock bottom is the only thing that will make me believe you. No healing on the way down boys, you must let the nose of the plane hit the concrete and then we will listen to you. In short, to believe that you are actually sorry, I need to see you squirm. You better cry harder homie, no one believes you.
This is not my perspective but rather the apparent perspective of those absolutely closest to these guys going through a dark time. Maybe I’m the idiot who actually believes they are sorry, but I do…
Why do we do this to each other? Why do we punish the apology? Why do we condition someone’s internal feelings of being sorry on our internal acceptance of their external expression? (Shit, was that sentence fire or am I feeling myself on a caffine high right now).
I hope my kids get the apology they deserve. If I am honest, I hope mother doesn’t cry. I don’t want that production for them. I unverifiably assume she never asked for these kids but was too desperate, naive, ignorant, or selfish to care that they could be created. Part of me wonders why she had sex in the first place. I deeply hope it’s because she wanted to feel love, at a minimum. I do hope she apologizes for trying to be a mother for so long though. She was horrible at it and she kept trying. That’s not admirable, that’s negligent. I hope she is sorry for not being aware enough that her daughter misses her despite what she did to her. I hope she apologizes to them for not checking in. I hope she apologizes to them for wanting a single fucking thing in this world before meeting their needs.
I hope she never apologizies to us. She did the right thing one time and it saved their lives. The adults in the room can call it even… but you fucked up my daughter and that’s not ok. I need you to say you’re sorry at somepoint.
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