Forgiveness, or lack thereof, is the final boss of every human relationship, yet we all seem to be quite bad at it. We hold grudges against siblings, resent our parents, and occasionally curse our peers because “some things are unforgivable”. Yet, we forgive characters for those same things all the time. “Yes, it was bad for our protagonist to hook up with her best friend’s boyfriend, but she did it for love! They were made for each other!”. Meanwhile, we are spitting in the faces of our own friends when they date someone we hooked up with nine years ago. More often than not, we suppress our humanity and punch up the moral judgement. “Cheating is bad and I am not!”.

Do not get me wrong. Cheating is indeed very bad and no one should do it. I was cheated on with ‘the guy she told me not to worry about’ when I was a teenager. Trust me, it’s earth-shattering. I will not share details, but that betrayal loomed over me for years. I felt like everyone was laughing at me. I trusted no one in future relationships. And then I found Fleabag.

When I was 20, I watched a television show written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. The story followed the messy life of a young woman who is never named aloud, but is called “Fleabag” in the script. After the death of her best friend, Fleabag suffers feelings of extreme guilt and shame. She blames herself for the death of her friend while also fighting memories of the death of her mother. Did I mention it’s a comedy? Through sharp humor and even sharper drama, the asides (moments of speaking directly to the camera) in Fleabag’s story bring the audience into the protagonist’s grief and subsequent bad decisions without feeling like we have to justify them as morally granted. Instead, we watch it all unfold in the ways it all must. 

We lick the inevitability off our fingers as we eat up her humor, indignity, and guilt, as if Fleabag’s wrongdoings were our own, and we were finally getting them resolved for us. We feel her shame, but only she can do anything about it, so we are happy to schlep her heavy tote of human desires around instead, wanting more for her than even she wants for herself. We toss our humanity into the tote and take it with us scene-to-scene. Every time we see her make the worst decision possible, we want her to succeed even more. We love the mess because we are the mess. 

Tucked away in the writing of Fleabag, these revelations provided me with an understanding of forgiveness that I never had before. Forgiveness is not about justifying someone’s actions according to what they’ve been through (Yeah, she divinely betrayed her best friend, but give her a break! Her mom just died!). It’s about inevitability. Mistakes and wrongdoings are bound to happen. Hell, they’re supposed to happen. When we watch films, we are blissfully prepared to enjoy that truth. Something bad is going to happen. That’s why we go see the movie. Some character will inevitably fuck up and I will stick by them anyway. This is not so much the case for why we show up for our loved ones. For some misguided reason, we hope they know better than to hurt us. But in reality, they know better and they still hurt us. It’s inevitable. It’s human.

Therefore, forgiveness requires understanding that one’s mistakes need not destroy their humanity. The actions of one will always baffle the mind of another. This is just the way of things. True forgiveness is the acceptance of this baffling condition. Acceptance of our own anger and resentment and the subsequent removal of blame. For the sake of humanity. Theirs and yours. 

Written by Patty Castellanos