Saturday, May 19, 2018

Closure

You know that phrase, where someone tells you, or maybe you told someone, that all you wanted was to sit down and hash it out, get some closure?

Surely, it's not that easy.There is no way you can get closure simply by sitting down with someone once or twice and 'hashing it out' and magically get closure. If it does work like that then I feel cheated.

Closure is. It's an internal process. It's a fucking long journey, riddled with self-doubt and insecurities and 'was-it-me's and 'I-should've's. It's an rearrangement of mind, a resection of a part of yourself, a negotiation with you and your past and your present and your future.

Closure is endless nights of scrolling through past conversations and messages and wondering if I made the wrong decision, if it was all just a mistake, if it could be rescued; if, if, if.
Closure is a few books worth of diary entries and endless lists of pros and cons of getting back together and apologising and basically begging for time to reverse itself.
Closure is dissecting every moment we were together, every single word I said, every single word you said, every intention unsaid, every look every glance every accidental meeting of skin.
Closure is getting choked up at random things, random places, random words because of the associated memories and yeah, sorry, just a little sand in my eyes.
Closure is cursing my own idiotic ego.
Closure is yearning, longing for every scrap of information, every stolen glance at an unaware back, every pathetic attempt at appearing unaffected while dying bit by bit inside.
Closure is constant vigilance for a familiar silhouette and running away before he sees me because god knows I'm not yet able to handle thinking of him much less seeing him even though my butterflies are flying towards him.
Closure is nights after nights after nights of Adele and Sam Smith and old Taylor Swift and every sad song in the world; and deleting all my old playlists because fucking memories.
Closure is deleting all messages on a whim and regretting it.
Closure is me telling myself again and again that it happened time and time again and history will repeat itself no matter how many times or how many different ways I crash head-first into it again because this is on me and unless I get a personality transplant it's not happening.
Closure is reminding myself every single night why it's not a good idea no matter how I feel because it goes against what I believe and I simply cannot give it chances anymore it'll all head down the same path anyway and my head tells me we're not gonna last even if we get back together and my heart just sits there with its metaphorical ears plugged throwing a tantrum blind to the destruction ahead.
Closure is watching friends and family trade affection while I stand alone with cold empty shoulders and a niggling voice inside my head telling me it's all my fault anyway why do I even complain it's time to live with the consequences of my choices.
Closure is night after night after night after night after night after night after night of being unable to put anything into words and it's all jumbled up and no way I can tell anyone how messed up I am inside for hating you blaming you for my mistakes.
Closure is drowning.
Closure is burying myself in distraction and work and new hobbies and escapism so I don't have to think about it and can let the wound heal instead of picking and picking at it making it bleed over and over again.
Closure is wanting to cry all the time and having to choke it down and starving for physical reassurance and wishing for physical pain because intangible pain simply cannot be soothed and trying to not imagine arms around me or warmth surrounding me because it never happened and it never will.
Closure is promising myself to do better next time to communicate better next time to jump and risk it next time and knocking myself in the head because what next time?


Closure is-




Closure is pain. So much pain. That sometimes I stay in bed at night unable to breathe because I threw away the chance to not feel so alone simply because of the fear of the possibility of failure because I'm a coward and it's all too late now anyway so sit there and enjoy this slow digging feeling in your chest where a heart used to be.

Closure is acceptance. That it didn't work, and it's all in the past, and it's too late, and he's not mine anymore, and maybe he never was anyway.

Closure is time. Time and Distance. Time heals all wounds, they say, but it doesn't get rid of scars, and there are hypertrophic scars and keloid scars and phantom pain and I just have to live with it, but with distance maybe, just maybe, the triggers will stay just far away enough.

Closure is-

It's walking on the street one day and suddenly realising it doesn't hurt that much anymore. That it doesn't take so much effort anymore to not-think.

It's smiling one day and realising that it's actually genuine.

It's bumping into him accidentally one day and feeling vaguely off because oh, I haven't thought of you in a while, and feeling confused on how I should feel about that. 

Closure is accepting the pain, accepting the mistakes, accepting the what-ifs. Accepting that it happened, accepting that it wasn't to be.

Closure is a journey. It's an extended, super prolonged conversation with your self. It helps to sit down with each other and figure out what went wrong, and come to an agreement about what happens next. It helps. But true closure? That happens within. Nobody can give you closure if you aren't ready for it. I learnt this the hard way. I learnt this the unethical way.

But I got my closure, almost two years later.


...


That's my answer. That's what I wasn't able to say.

I've shed blood (or less dramatically, ink), sweat and tears coming to this closure. I've convinced my entire being to close this chapter up. I've let it scab over.

I'm sorry I cannot. I really am. For you, for me. I'm sorry I led you on. I'm sorry for all the thoughtless things I've done. I'm sorry for my dishonesty, I'm sorry for my evasion, I'm sorry for my indecisiveness. I am sorry for all the pain I caused. I truly am; I cannot tell you how much, and you should hate me for that, and I'll accept it because it's the truth it's something I have to live with, I know. And I know 'I'm sorry' will never be enough because it wasn't enough for me, but I'm still sorry. I'm sorry I didn't give us a chance to work things out.

But I...

I just can't go through that again.