I've spent so many muddy hours wallowing in self-imposed guilt and shame over a million petty and self perceived infractions that when I reached my mid-twenties, I didn't really know there were any other feelings to have about myself.

I couched my guilt and shame in the political rhetoric of 'accountability,' which I mostly perverted into another tool to remind myself of what a fuck-up I was. I figured it was okay if I flagellated myself with accountability, because I had similar expectations of the other people in my life, and so long as everyone was getting the same shit kicked out of them, it felt justifiable as a community-building tool. Of course, in retrospect I can admit that I didn't have a very comprehensive understanding of what accountability entailed, but I like to think I was on the right track.

The concept of forgiveness, when couched in the context of religion, was revelatory for me. The radical form of religious forgiveness I experienced said that I had, and did, and would fuck up - not because of who I was but because of how the world worked - and yet I was forgiven for all of it, even without having asked for or sought that forgiveness. And everyone else was privy to that forgiveness as well. Forgiveness altered my understanding of the world and myself and it definitely moved me to start attending church - but it was not nearly as romantic or dramatic as 'relevation' ought to be. Mostly because I was skeptical and hard to win over when it came to forgiveness. I could not figure out how to reconcile forgiveness with accountability (both the perverse self-hating kind I was into, and the actual meat of the idea.) I don't think I'm alone in that skepticism. Forgiveness can seem flowery and insubstantial; it can feel like a million muttered 'sorrys' that don't mean anything once the moment has passed.

These last few years have been a real test of how I'm coming to put forgiveness and accountability in conversation with one another, sometimes somewhat successfully.

After a few years in a manipulative and abusive relationship, I had dug myself far enough out to catch all the weird tics I'd picked up from being fearful and confused. I had unraveled the upside-down crazy narrative that I'd co-authored. But I couldn't figure out how to forgive. I'd sit myself down to do it, to forgive.  I would end up on a tilt-a-whirl, rolling one way then the other until I was sick.

Trying to forgive the manipulation and abuse I'd been subject to forced me down the rabbit hole of guilt and shame - a litany of wrongs I'd done, permissions I'd given, fuel I'd thrown on the fire. If I tried to forgive myself for ignoring signs, putting myself in harms way, withdrawing from a community I loved, I made my ex into a demon that she wasn't. It didn't seem possible to forgive us both, although that was what I knew I ultimately had to do, because I needed so badly to be able to return to a single moment in time where things had gone wrong. If there were a thousand of those moments - moments that had been wrong and right - then how could I hold anyone accountable?

I demanded accountability - from myself, from my old lover, from my community - but when I held on so tightly to those demands, I lost my ability to offer and receive the forgiveness I was trying to impart. The best I can do is to ask for honesty, receive it when it is given and offer my own truth. It still doesn't make sense. I still don't quite know how to hold all of this - how to quit punishing myself and send the past off with a blessing. Seeking out honesty and giving it in return feels like enough to straddle the divide, for now.