Closure.

Closure is an elusive and undefinable thing, but to me it means essentially, the idea that letting go comes from two places; yours and theirs. And in order to move forward – I mean really move forward, you have to allow yourself to look and feel vulnerable to that person so that you can let them go. And sometimes that’s all it takes. Words. Vulnerability. Allowing yourself to look like a desperate loser who deserves to be laughed at. And somehow that embarrassing feeling of being vulnerable to others, helps us forget them. Why? I don’t know. Because it allows us to have the last word? Because embarrassment trumps anger and resentment? Or because there really, truly is power in vulnerability…?

In my life, all I’ve ever wanted or needed from anyone was “closure” but sometimes it’s more like a unicorn than anything else. Sometimes the people in our lives don’t allow us to have closure. They leave us hanging and entrapped, and they leave us constantly wondering; what if I allowed myself to be vulnerable to them and I allowed myself to suddenly go through that horrid and icky, angry feeling of never feeling you got to say what you really, truly wanted to say? What if… what if. And on and on it goes, until suddenly you are surrounded by nightmares and anger and sadness.

When considering when and how to eliminate someone from your life, even if it’s for the best, these are things I think about. I think first and foremost about the memories. The wonderful, full, rich numerous days of life and support and amazing conversations I’ve had with them. The ways I laughed so so so hard when I was with them. The ways I felt like they appreciated our inside jokes and observations about the world, and the ways we acted like girls – truly, truly effeminate girls in the truest sense of the world – because we could, when we were together. The times I stood by this person – even deleting their exes from Facebook regardless of my feelings about them, if only because I constantly wore a badge of protectiveness and strong, unbridled loyalty to my lovely friends, who I thought would be there for me forever. The way we got to play the race card. The way we could look into the lives of others and see the cruel humour in those lives, even if it wasn’t necessarily the most ‘right’ way to look at everything. All of that was my twenties. In my twenties I laughed and loved and appreciated so much of what these friendships brought forth in my life. I hang onto hem. I love and care about them. I still do. And I always will.

But – I was the one whose love and affection was taken for granted, taken advantage of, who always feels the need to look and feel vulnerable, to make odes and laments and eulogies to the past. And no one else seems to be able to make those sad and true admissions. What that tells me is this: These people don’t care about me. They don’t care who has the last word. They don’t remember me. They could care less what is happening in my life, and they don’t care to make amends. They’re done with everything that has anything to do with me and it hits a sore spot in me, and the reason that sore spot is there, is because of a lack of closure. It’s because of a lack of everything. It’s because I’ll never be able to say what I want. Because I’m afraid to. I’m afraid of the meanness, the backlash, the goodbyes, the finality of it all. I’m afraid of what I so desperately want, and I don’t even know why, or what makes me afraid.

At the end of the day, all I ever want to do is pour my heart out. To write long, heartfelt and deep letters to the people who left me and wronged me and made me feel like an outsider, ugly, unworthy of love. And I want to tell them just how much that hurts to be kicked down into the dirt and stomped on after almost an entire decade of the best memories of my life. I want to but the reality is, it won’t make a difference. Because for closure to be closure, both parties have to meet halfway, join hands, shake, and walk away peacefully. And that’s something I am so, so, so willing to do for others. But others are so, so, so unwilling to do for me.

In my life I have known some of the best people and the best times and the best music and the best laughter anyone has ever known. And I’ve also known the terrors of sleeplessness, insomnia, anxiety, terror, sadness, hopelessness, and being completely and utterly isolated and alone. I’ve known the most embarrassing awkward moments. I’ve known how it feels to have an entire group of friends – your lifers, your go-tos, the people you thought once that you could count on for absolutely anything on earth, leave you in the dust with nothing and no one and totally shun you and treat you like popular high school girls would treat someone they arbitrarily decided they didn’t like. And that’s hard to deal with. It hurts and it sucks and it breaks my heart and despite all the good things in my life, I’m not going to pretend that everything is 10000% fine and that I’m better off without those who I felt like I needed once, who I got milkshakes and fries with and walked down Whyte Avenue with laughing our asses off after an amazing night of midnight madness vintage clothes shopping.. those things are a huge part of who I am. And to make the decision to rip them from the fabric of my tapestry and trash the mangled threads… matters too.

But without closure, what else can I do but that?