Tag: #closure

Requiem to 2020

Covid-19 has been in our lives for over a year now, and many of us are currently experiencing a second or third lockdown as cases around the world are on the rise. The promise of vaccination exists, but it could be another year or more before our population is protected enough for life to get back to ‘normal’. If ‘normal’ can even exist anymore. 

It’s impossible to say now what the long term repercussions of our first encounter with a global pandemic will be. Which leaves us in a very difficult place; only half way through a marathon period of fear, loss, and waiting, without even knowing exactly what we are waiting for. We are stuck pushing our way to an ending, without any guarantee of what that ending will bring, or when it will occur. So how do we cope when the world around us seems bleak, and we don’t know when the light will come again? How do we find meaning, happiness, and fulfillment in our lives when it feels like everything has come to a grinding halt? How do we get to the end of this race still feeling like ourselves?

I have seen many stories of people who have done wonderful things with this time. People who have learned to become amazing artists, chefs, or writers. People who have immersed themselves in health building activities, who have lost weight, gained muscle, or increased flexibility. People who have taken this time to educate themselves, improve their living spaces, or explore things they have never had the chance to explore before. People who have embraced this challenging time, faced it like warriors on a battlefield, and who have beat it into submission with their success.

I am not one of those people.

2020 was going to be a big year for me. After many years of isolation, a few more years of trying to find a way to fit into someone else’s life, and some time (finally) spent discovering what I wanted, I found myself starting 2020 happy with who I was, the people I had around me, and what my future held. I found hobbies that let me be creative and express myself, friends that embraced who I am and reciprocated by sharing parts of themselves with me, and a partner who was as excited to build a life together as I was. I had reached an age I had always dreaded but found an unexpected peace and acceptance with. My son was going to graduate, and we were going to have the opportunity to celebrate his transition from child to adulthood. I was going to have my first public speaking opportunity on behalf of this blog, and my first ever out of country romantic adventure. I was in the early stages of developing new friendships and relationships that showed lots of promise. And there were going to be several parties, conventions, concerts, celebrations, and get-togethers to help fuel my ever present need for new input. It was shaping up to be a big year. 

Covid-19 hit us in mid-March and everything changed. All of the things we were looking forward to, all of the get-togethers, trips, and events, became things we were afraid of. The simple acts of going to work, getting groceries, or putting gas in our cars became high risk, and introduced a danger into our lives we had never had to consider before. Instead of finding comfort or joy in other people, we had to be afraid of them. The freedoms we loved were now risks we weren’t allowed to take. And while there have been some short periods of relief sprinkled in, most of us have been living like this for the last year. 

Like many people I spent most of 2020 being reactive. I watched the news, followed the rules, and stayed home. My whole life became about watching, listening, and waiting for things to get better. Every time the case numbers went down I would get excited, and every time they went up I would get sad. I had endless discussions with people about how the pandemic was going, how it was affecting them, what the numbers meant, and when things would get better. It became an endless cycle of checking in and waiting, checking and waiting. And not once did I decide to take to accomplish something with all the time I now had. 

Does this mean I consider 2020 a lost or wasted year? Can I no longer consider myself a warrior able to take on any challenge that comes my way? Have I let this pandemic beat me?

No.

2020 was not the year I planned it to be, and I was not the person I always thought I would be in the face of crisis, but that does not mean it was wasted, or that I lost, or have been beaten. A lot of wonderful things still happened, and some of them wouldn’t have without the pandemic. I got to spend more time with my son than I would have otherwise, and was able to be there and help him through something that none of us have ever experienced before. My family had the opportunity to show him, and ourselves, that there are different ways than the ones we have always known to enjoy day to day life, celebrate accomplishments, and support each other through difficult times. My partner and I had more time together than we had ever had before, and had the opportunity to go through something truly difficult together. We learned to recognize, understand, and support stress in each other, which likely would have taken us years to do without something as impactful as a global pandemic. We found new hobbies to enjoy together, new ways to challenge and entertain one another, and truly learned how to relax into our partnership. I was able to reach out to friends and offer support, and in some cases was pleasantly surprised by who offered support in return. Some friendships were difficult to maintain at a distance and are in a holding pattern until we can see each other again, but others flourished in ways I don’t think they would have otherwise.

2020 was a difficult year, because it was a year I entered full of expectation. In the end 2020 taught me the value of embracing and enjoying the things I have right now, showed me the immeasurable love and support that surrounds me, and left me in awe of the way we are all able to adapt and grow in new circumstances. I am now ready to move on from mourning what 2020 could have been, and to more forward looking at 2021 with hope free of expectation.

Letting Go

I am the first to admit, I have a hard time letting go. To be clear, I don’t mean I have a hard time ending something that isn’t working; I have no problem analyzing a situation and deciding it isn’t going to work, and I don’t have an issue communicating that. What I’m talking about is emotionally letting go once something is over. Whether it’s a romantic partner that didn’t work out or a friendship that became distant, I have a lot of difficulty allowing people to move out of my life on an emotional level. I continue to worry about them, wonder what they are up to, think of things I would like to say to them, and generally just keep them in my mind longer than I feel is healthy. And when I’m the one to make that decision, to make the call that something is over, it’s even harder, because then there is the guilt that comes from hurting them along with the rest. Losing someone, even if its someone I haven’t really known that long, is an almost physical pain for me. I feel the space they used to fill like an empty seat beside me for some time afterwards.

My last long term romantic relationship could have ended long before it did. We were both holding on for the wrong reasons, and things went on longer than they should have. As a result the ending hurt more than it needed to, and I held onto the pain from that for a very long time. I couldn’t let go of thinking about how he was doing, what could have been, and all the little things that had happened that had hurt me. It was my way of continuing to hold onto the relationship. If I was still being hurt by it, and still thinking about him all the time, then it wasn’t really over. At least not in my mind. 

I don’t only have this problem with romantic relationships. I’ve had friendships I have lost that have been just as important to me. I love my friends as much as I love my partners. They are the family that I choose. When friendships end it is harder on me in a lot of ways, because I can never understand why they need to end. Friendships don’t have the expectations on them that romantic relationships can have; friendships don’t need to meet perceived goals or timelines, they don’t require you to merge lives or to commit fully to each other in order to continue. Most of the pressures that end romantic relationships aren’t there in a friendship, and yet somehow they end anyway, either abruptly or by fading away. It is a type of rejection that I have a lot of trouble letting go of, because I have a hard time seeing as anything but a personal one. I continuously wonder what I did to push them away, or what I was lacking in keeping them interested. 

So how do I deal with it? I’ve learned over the years that it is important to mourn the end of a relationship without obsessing over it, whatever type of relationship it was. Let the feelings of sadness, loss, and even guilt run their course; don’t tell yourself you shouldn’t feel that way. You are allowed to feel the way you do, wonder what they are doing, and replay any moments that you want to. Accept the feelings, acknowledge them, really feel them, and then let them go. Take as much time as you need. The important thing is that you don’t act on them, and that you don’t let them consume you. Don’t become angry or bitter, don’t obsessively stalk anyone in person or online, don’t blame yourself for everything that goes wrong in their lives, and don’t wallow in your memories. Don’t try to keep someone in your life that isn’t there anymore. Take the time to clean out that empty seat, so that someone else can sit there. 

Closure

For most of us this is something we never get. When a relationship ends one partner is usually left wondering what changed, when it happened, where things went wrong, why now, and how they could have missed it. On top of all the emotions that come with losing someone, there is the not knowing. It eats at us, bringing out feelings of self doubt and mistrust, and often causes problems in our future relationships.

So given the opportunity for closure, would you take it? The easy answer is yes, of course, because if you know everything that went wrong then you can prevent it from happening again. Right?

Wrong. In most cases the things we call ‘closure’ wind up being more hurtful than helpful. Or they aren’t really closure at all, just excuses, or blame. They often lead to more hurt feelings, and further destruction of the relationship. And they can still affect your future relationships in negative ways, by adding to any lingering anger or lack of trust.

If you are given the opportunity to get closure from someone it is important to ask yourself some hard questions. First, is this person really capable of giving you closure? If they couldn’t tell you this information when things ended,why are they capable of telling you now? What has changed for them? Have they really been reviewing what happened and coming up with more thorough answers, or are you just going to get a regurgitated version of things you’ve already heard?

Second, are you capable of hearing what they have to say? If your former partner really does come to you with new or expanded reasons about why things ended, are you going to be able to really hear what they are telling you? This won’t be easy for them either. If you are going to ask for closure, and they are ready to truly provide it, you had best be ready to hear it. Otherwise it’s not fair to anyone.

Finally, is this closure really going to change anything? If you do get all the answers to every question you ever wanted to ask, what will that mean? It won’t bring back the relationship, and it probably won’t leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy about you or your former partner. What is you end game in asking for closure? Why is it important to you? If it’s so you can assign blame to someone else, don’t. That’s just a waste of time, it’s already over. If it’s so you know what you did wrong, be careful. Just because it was ‘wrong’ for your last partner doesn’t mean it will be wrong for your next one, or that it’s wrong for you. Changing yourself based on what someone else wanted is a slippery slope that can end up with you losing who you are. I’m not saying you shouldn’t listen to what the other person has to say, but remember to take it with several large grains of salt. Hold on to who you are and what you learned about yourself or each other while you were together, and let the blame and hurt fade away.