Maybe Closure Isn't a Conversation

Sometimes the answer you're waiting for has already been given. It just wasn't given in words.

For a long time, I thought closure was something another person had to give you.

One final conversation. One honest explanation. One moment where all the pieces finally fit together and you could walk away understanding exactly what happened.

I wanted that.

I wanted answers to questions I wasn't even sure I would ask if I ever got the chance. I wanted to know when things changed. Why they changed. Whether there was some moment I could point to and say, there, that's where everything started falling apart.

Mostly, I wanted the story to make sense.

Because if it made sense, maybe it would hurt less.

I've started to realize that's not always how this works.

Sometimes there isn't an explanation satisfying enough to make what happened feel reasonable. Sometimes the person who hurt you doesn't understand themselves well enough to explain it. Sometimes they understand perfectly and the truth still won't give you the peace you imagined it would.

And sometimes they simply don't give you the conversation at all.

That's the part no one prepares you for.

What do you do when someone leaves you with questions they have no intention of answering?

You can wait.

You can replay every conversation you've ever had. You can examine every memory, search for inconsistencies, and build theories from pieces of information that were never meant to become evidence.

You can imagine what you'd say if they called.

You can imagine what they'd say back.

You can have the entire conversation without them a hundred different ways.

I've done that.

The problem is that waiting for someone to give you closure can become another way of staying connected to them.

They're still part of your day.

Still occupying your thoughts. Still influencing your decisions. Still holding something you believe you need before you're allowed to move forward.

That's an incredible amount of power to leave in someone else's hands.

Especially when they've already shown you what they do with it.

Maybe closure isn't understanding why someone hurt you.

Maybe it's accepting that they did.

Maybe you don't need to know why they lied to recognize that they lied. You don't need to understand why they stopped showing up to acknowledge that you were left waiting. You don't need their explanation for disrespect before you're allowed to decide you deserved better.

Behavior is information.

I keep coming back to that.

We spend so much time searching for hidden meaning when sometimes the clearest answer is sitting right in front of us.

They didn't call.

They didn't apologize.

They kept doing the thing you told them was hurting you.

They promised something would change, and it didn't.

They knew what you needed and repeatedly chose not to give it.

Those are answers.

They may not be the answers you wanted.

But they're answers.

I think part of me believed closure would eventually produce an explanation that made everything easier to forgive. Something complicated enough to soften what happened. Something that would let me say, “Oh. Now I understand.”

But understanding someone isn't the same as excusing them.

And forgiveness doesn't require access.

Neither does moving on.

You are allowed to close a door someone else left open.

You are allowed to stop waiting for an apology.

You are allowed to decide that the absence of an explanation is information too.

There may always be things I don't know.

I'm learning to live with that.

Not because the questions stopped mattering.

Because my life started mattering more.

Words of Wisdom

Closure doesn't always arrive as an apology, an explanation, or one final conversation. Sometimes closure is believing what someone's behavior already showed you and deciding you no longer need them to explain why you deserved better. You are allowed to close the door yourself.

Until next Tuesday.

— S.