hello, just one off the dome to get some feelings out into the ether.
closure is a concept i've been really picking apart lately. my therapist recently told me the type of closure i look for in relationships that end/have a lot tied up in them is unrealistic to have. that wanting there to be an end goal where things are neatly wrapped into a little bow and i can walk away from them is black and white thinking that isn't helpful for my growth.
people always tell you that one of the first things you learn in therapy is "progress is not linear." this idea that healing from something doesn't need to be a consistent action you do that results in a nebulous idea of progress. that there will be times where you dip back into old regressive habits, where you behave in ways you find inappropriate, where the work you've been doing will feel trampled on and invalidated. and that all of that is okay. the idea in teaching "progress is not linear" is to allow you to be comfortable with the fact that things can be messy while you heal. that you can make mistakes and change your mind and feel differently than how you felt yesterday and that none of it invalidates the emotional work you've been doing while healing from something.
that's all true. but i think it's easy to look at this concept and still envision there being an end to your grief or a metaphorical terminus to processing something even if the path to it is allowed to not be straightforward. the reality is that pretty much everything in life will not be given proper closure. no situation or relationship or trauma will ever be able to be put in a box and filed away and forgotten about no matter how much work you do to understand it; even if that particular thing does fade from your every day purview. you will always live with and be the product of every single action you've ever taken and every single experience you've ever had. that's what makes up the fabric of your story, your being even. and if you're the kind of person like me who is committed to learning this and letting it shape how you grow, then you're going to have to be comfortable with the harsh truth that things will never work out exactly the way you want them to in the end. and that there really is no "end" to be had. there will always be factors beyond your control and there will never be an end point that will feel "complete" or "finished," at least not in the dictionary definition sense.
many do still close out their days, regrets and all, feeling like they got everything they could out of this life. that it was a life that was whole once it reached its conclusion. i certainly hope to be one of those people when the time comes. i don't think learning these lessons in therapy will prevent that. but i also don't think i'll reach that point feeling like i had "solved" my emotional problems or that i "finished" processing them. there is no brushing away what has already shaped us. there is no removing memories eternal sunshine style and having them never be a part of you again. you are forever bound to who you are and have been until you're time in this body comes to a close. and i think that's just been a really difficult pill to swallow for me.
it's not even because i read this sentiment from a particularly nihilist lens. i don't see the idea of being saddled with all my emotions and memories and complications of them to be a defeatist aspect of life. frankly i find it quite beautiful. but it is hard to unlearn concepts that go against this way of thinking that have been burrowed into my psyche for the better part of 30 years. it is hard to build new neural pathways. and it has been hard for me personally to look at the world this way and accept its beauty instead of being afraid by it. that's what they don't tell you about "progress is not linear." they don't tell you that it means you have to accept, or at least be aware, that closure is not a reality. that the healing never really ends, and the progress can just keep going on and on. that the world moves around you and will never stop turning for as long as you and everyone you exist around today are still here.
and it's just something i've been thinking about a lot.