Is closure a myth?
I almost always close the door when I leave a room. Not for any particular reason, like turning off the lights to save the planet or locking a window to keep intruders at bay. Doors were made to be closed, right?
Closure. The elusive, tempting feeling we chase after something ends with the futile hope that answers will make the sting fade.
The worst part of someone leaving, in my experience, is the unanswered questions that barrage your mind. The one that always circles mine, almost every time a relationship of any sort deteriorates, is simple.
Was it something I did?
Humans seek to place blame somewhere. It’s how we solve problems; we have to identify a cause before we find a solution. We struggle to accept that the world is rarely black and white; people and their actions are different shades of gray. Looking back at the roadmap of our relationships, we try to assign blame at each turn and bump, hoping to finally answer the lingering questions of how we got there.
Answering those questions looks different in every case. Some call their ex-partner to ask where things went wrong, and others talk to their friends ad nauseam, rehashing the same scenarios from every possible angle. All in pursuit of the same goal – closure.
Recently, I had the urge to have that final conversation. The one you swear to all your friends is the last, when you’ll finally get the answers you need to move on. But I thought of a deep wound. A wound that needs stitches and medical intervention, the sting of antiseptic.
When I got any sort of cut or bruise as a child, I would pick and prod at it until it bled again. My mother, eyeing my hands, would beg me to just leave it alone. Put a bandage on it and let time work its magic.
The only thing that can heal any wound completely, physical or emotional, is time.
Of course, that’s easier said than done. If I’m anything, I’m obsessive, and unanswered questions make me toss and turn at night. From the noblest of angles, maybe hearing what I did wrong could be making a case for self-improvement.
Shortly after that thought, I’m hit with the cold slap of the truth. People leave. Relationships, romantic or otherwise, end. People have left me, and I’ve left them. Will digging through the boxes of blame and assigning who gets what really do anything but waste time?
Closure, much like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, isn’t real.
For those still battling the incessant questions from their subconscious, re-examining every decision they’ve ever made, trying to figure out what went wrong, let me echo my mother’s sage advice.
Just leave it alone and let time do its job.
