Over sandwiches and “Law & Order: SVU” this winter break, I had a very long, open conversation with a boy I fell for in high school but never pursued because of my own personal fear of opening up to anyone who wasn’t one of my three best friends.
“I was scared,” I had told him. And admittedly, so was he, so we spent the minutes and hours we had together thinking of the pitfalls of the past and resolving to be better in the future.
In between the lines of columns I had written mentioning him that he had read and the sun slowly going down as we talked, we gave the high school versions of ourselves the closure they needed. We reassured the present versions of ourselves that we forgave each other. He had changed his outlook on relationships, so I resolved to change my outlook on golf. He said goodbye, leaving a kiss on my lips and a promise to not be a stranger.
Full closure is a nice concept. It’s a nice thing to believe that those who have wronged us have to give us an explanation for all the pain they caused us, provide us a reason as to why they walked away or answer any of our lingering questions. It’s a nice thing to believe that every confrontation will play out like they do in our heads, dramatic exits and all, abstained from regret or lingering feelings. Closure, in those scenarios, means that we get to move on. This, however, is rarely the reality as we go through the world hiding how we feel behind one-word text messages and unreciprocated Snapchats.
In reality, people who have hurt us walk away without a word. In this reality, we are sometimes never able to get another word in with those who we’ve wronged.
I can only imagine the conversations I’d have with all those who have wronged me. It would start with a harsh word and end with a dramatic hair flip or a fierce pivot and exit with Beyoncé playing in the background. It would depend on the type of day I was having. I have unresolved questions lingering for those people, things left unsaid, words lingering on my tongue that I’ve resorted to writing in dramatic poems and poorly written diary entries. As helpful as these tools were, they were not the best options for me to release how I had been feeling. I kept tormenting myself with all the things I wish I had said, all the questions I would have asked and all the answers I was never granted.
Closure is a hard thing to obtain, because it relies on two people baring their souls and confessing to wronging each other. For it to work, for both parties to be abstained from guilt at the end of it, there needs to be honesty, openness and a want to put the past behind both of them or resolve for a better future. Few people are willing to put themselves into a place of vulnerability to achieve this — to rehash feelings of the past and resolve to move forward to the greatest extent that they can. I was able to do this with him because we both were confident, open and vulnerable at the same time. We were able to put the past versions of ourselves behind us, awkward teenage years and all.
Sometimes we open ourselves up and grant ourselves closure. Other times, we have to watch with tears in our eyes and hearts in our hands when the ones we love walk out of our lives. Closure is never granted. Closure is not always achieved. Closure never comes easy, nor does it come in the words we want to hear. Sometimes we just have to resolve with ourselves that we may never get it. In cases such as these, we have to grant ourselves the closure we never got.
We have to believe, in our recently ended relationships and the ones before it, that we did the best we could, that we fought as hard as we let ourselves. And although we may never get answers to the questions that remain, we can finally resolve to stop asking them. We have to be kinder to ourselves and grant ourselves the closure we never got. We have to stop torturing ourselves by thinking of all the questions we’ve never asked, words we’ve never said and give ourselves closure. Sometimes, we never get to resolve things left unresolved, so we close that door with or without that person. Other times, we can take what we get with a smile, a sandwich, a sunset, a little bit of “SVU” and open the door that’s right in front of us.
Meredith loves telling stories and pretending to be Carrie Bradshaw, minus the man and comfy NYC apartment. She, however, eats enough brunch to cover all six seasons. When she's not drowning in 16th-century literature, she can be found lamenting over the bad grammar and bad boys in her middle school diary.
Find her on twitter @merewilsh or email her mwilsher@bu.edu with all your love musings or questions.
