Sorry I am

They say love means never having to say you’re sorry. But that’s an enormous crock of shit. Love means always having to say you’re sorry, and if you’re lucky, being forgiven anew each time. What the fairy tales seldom say is what happens after all that riding off into the sunset. Because after you do win the girl, it’ll be your ability to apologize for everything from life’s little annoyances to life’s colossal fuck-ups that will actually allow you to keep the girl. (Helpful Hint: Crying never hurts.)

I finally got a chance to finish Season 4 of “Skins” over the weekend and, woo doogie, that was big slice of holy hell. (Spoiler Alert: Skip to the next paragraph if you haven’t finished Season 4, or you ever plan to – which should be all of you who haven’t already. Seriously.) OK, first of all, they Chaikened Freddie? It’s just… I don’t… And then… BASEBALL BAT. Also, don’t the British play cricket? I can’t even get into the insane intricacies of how this show about the outrageous slings and arrows of being a teenager in the tenth year of the 21st Century turned into some sort of mad midnight slasher flick. All I can say is, oh my God, they killed Freddie!

Right, but back to what we were talking about, which was saying you’re sorry. Movies and TV tend to be a good job of showing the grand romantic gesture. Cymbals, fireworks, screaming about wankers on the top of a cab. But the raw, oozing innards that make up a really good apology, well, that’s tricky. Yet, when done right that release of one’s pride, that admission of one’s failing, that acceptance of pain caused, that acknowledgment of pain felt, that promise to do right, try harder, be better – all of that can be more beautiful than a moonlit kiss atop the Eiffel Tower. Which is just a very long way of saying that Naomi’s apology to Emily just might be my favorite apology ever committed to screen.

Thinking about “Skins” makes me think about my other favorite show about teenagers, “My So-Called Life.” Which, in turn, had its own rather spectacular apology by way of classroom note and Cyrano de Bergerac.

These sorrys serve as a reminder that the best apologies are, in their own way, grand romantic gestures. But this time, you know how high the stakes are and exactly what could be lost. Which also makes them that much more important.