closure as a concept
song of the week: “Delete Ya” by Djo
I’ve always found it really interesting that people are often so motivated to find and receive closure from a situation, like it’s as easy to do as closing the door behind you when you leave the house, or flipping the page of a book into the next chapter. Closure in itself is a weird concept because most people don’t even know what it looks like until they actually experience it themselves. How many times have you seen in movies where someone is looking for their birth parents, or the reason behind a tragedy, only to be dissapointed and unsatistfied with the results? How many times have you thought that what you wanted turns out not to be? How many times have you heard that “ignorance is bliss”?
I think that humans like the concept of closure so much because it promises to provide them with an explanation, an answer, a clean cut, and a way to close off the situation from their lives. To many, it signifies an end to unpleasant feelings of grief, heartache, anger, and sadness. It’s within our human nature to want for something to feel complete, or finished, because in life everything ends at some point. People naturally die, resources run out, and maybe one day the whole planet explodes.
However, in reality, closure doesn’t promise us anything. That conversation that I imagine having with my ex over coffee where we talk about how and why things ended between us probabaly won’t go the way I expect it to. Who knows what he would say. People are complicated and unpredictable and we’re not guaranteed to get what we want or what we expect. Neither does closure guarantee us that we will never think or feel anything about a person or situation ever again. We are human and we have feelings for a reason. Our feelings are a guiding force in the decisions we make day to day. If we feel hungry, we eat something. If we feel scared, we stay away from something, and if we feel hurt or sadenned by something, we most likely don’t do it again to avoid that feeling. I know that it’s weird and I know that sometimes we often wish we could delete something or someone completely from our memory, but remembering it doesn’t mean we’re not over it. It’s normal to be reminded of somebody every time you see a pint of Ben and Jerry’s “Vermonster” in the freezer isle at the grocery store. It’s normal to be reminded of an unfortunate event that happened to you the last time you were wearing your “Empire Strikes Back” Star Wars graphic tee. We carry memories for a reason, so that we can learn and grow from every person and experience in our lives. If being a music and film lover has taught me anything, it’s that we can’t control life even if we try, and that some things are just meant to happen so that we can learn and grow from them. These are two of the themes in the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” starring Jim Carey and Kate Winslet about people deleting past lovers from their memory, and the consequences of it. It a beautiful, twisted, slightly confusing, yet interesting movie and I would highly reccomend watching. P.S. my Letterboxd is linked above with my socials if you like watching and reviewing movies like me!
The truth about closure, or the truth as I see it, is it’s not easy. It’s not deleting something from your memory, or throwing way that Star Wars graphic tee so you never have to see it again, because people and places aren’t disposable. In most cases we tend to forget things anyway, replacing old memories with new, so maybe it’s best to keep that that Star Wars graphic tee. Wear it again and make a new memory in it.
To me, closure is making the decision to unfollow your ex on instagram instead of having that conversation over coffee. It’s accepting that it might take you a while to find your closure because after all, they say your first heartbreak hurts the worst. Hard to get over. Hard to forget. I don’t think I ever will. Maybe it’s never reaching out to them again, even though they said they wanted you to (probabaly out of pity that you didn’t deserve), and even though you still miss them. Maybe it’s going to therapy to talk about your feelings and analyze what they’re trying to tell you. I’m sure mine’s excited to see me again next week (thanks Brittany)!
Every day we make a million choices but I think it’s the ones that feel challenging and difficult that help lead us to what we want out of life. In this moment I know that unfollowing him was the right choice because I’m someone who is not scared of confrontation and mending relationships. What scares me more is to no longer have someone in my life that I still care about. To know so much personal information about a person but to not “know” them anymore. But like I mentioned in a previous entry “relationships” (posted 7/6/25), that is the reality of life. People come into our lives, sometimes for a season, sometimes for a reason, and we should learn to accept them as they come in and out of our lives, as hard as it is. We can learn to be grateful for the good parts about those relationships and experiences.
Sometimes the things that seem the most scary or challenging are actually the best things we can do for ourselves. I hope that by choosing to move on every day and enjoy the beautiful life I still have, I can receive my own form of closure. Not the kind that feels like slamming a window shut to keep the flies out, but the kind that’s like a profound scene in a movie that lingers with you the next day. Like watching rainbow bubbles float far away and pop in the afternoon air after you blow them, or the bittersweetness of an old photograph, tinged yellow with age, shiny seal lifting up on the corners.
Closure is not just something you can go out into the world and find, and it’s not something that is given or happens to you. I believe that closure is a choice, and something you find within yourself, often with the help of time passing. Closure looks different for everybody. I don’t think that there’s one definition to fit every circumstance. If closure is something that each person finds within themselves, then I think that each person also needs to determine what their version of closure looks like before they begin to search for it. Closure is kind of just a concept anyway. It’s up to you to bring it into existence within your mind, and within your life. Best of luck on your own healing journey, whatever it may be.
xo,
gaby!
