Closure

What is closure? Is when Carrie finally puts on a brilliant dress and paints the town pink with her endless cosmos? Or is it when Rachel, Monica & Phoebe decide to have a ritualistic goodbye of their unlucky love affairs by burning mementos from their exes? Or is it when Blair decides to move on from Chuck by taking down her enemies and finding  a Prince on the way?

It’s all of these things and none of these things. The things about closure is that it’s never the same for anyone, but it’s the moment you decide things are going to change because you want them to.

When I look back at the past year and recollect the most burdensome feeling I’ve ever had to endure; it’s to tell someone that you love them and to not have them say it back to you. That’s the moment my heart completely shattered, when he said, “I don’t know how to respond to this,” and even now I don’t think it’s fully back together in one piece.

I still remember the exact time and date when it ended. That’s probably why it’s such a hard feeling because every detail is etched into your memory. I remember his scent, the forest green color of his shirt, the blank look in his eyes, the way his hands were tucked in the front pocket of his jeans, and then walking into the city streets and aimlessly looking at the 2 am sky hoping he ran down the stairs or took the next elevator down so he would stop me from leaving. But that didn’t happen.

The thing I didn’t know then, but I do now: he wanted an out and when the chance came to take it, he did. That’s the difference in wanting a convenient relationship over a good one. As soon as it stops becoming convenient or requires a little bit more work or sacrifice; they decide to leave.

Then came the mourning part, where most of the summer consisted of my numb body lying in bed listening to Adele and Lana Del Rey tracks on repeat; and watching movies that generally end with the lead pair kissing in the rain or falling snow; eating a lot of chocolate and peanut butter straight from the jar; emptying my parent’s wine cabinet; and grieving a dead relationship.

When I spent the remaining of the summer working on my blog, traveling, reconnecting with old friends, making new ones–I stayed so distracted that I didn’t have time to think about him or how much I missed him. And for some reason I believed I had closure. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago when I saw something that forced me to hear the sound of my own heart breaking all over again.

It came at a time when I was half away across the country, taking a road trip with my best friends. While sitting around at our hotel room, one of them suggested I write down everything I wanted to every say to him, take a shot of tequila, call him and finally say it so it could be over. And then burn all the things he ever gave me while we drank some more. And finally put on some Chanel and walk into bars and meet new guys I will never have to see again. Something right out of those sappy rom-coms or breakup songs that we general make fun of it; but underestimate the underlying message behind those actions.

That’s what I did. I took the inspiration of so many cliches and decided the end of the year would be the closing act of long-dragged out “what-ifs” and mixed signals. It started with a blank page from the hotel’s notepad and as we drove down a mountainous California highway, I sat on the passenger seat and wrote down everything I ever needed to say. All the things he gave me, which wasn’t much–just empty promises and half-truths; and all the things I needed to tell myself. And the next day, I drove down to Manhattan Beach and tossed the letter into the ocean, and watched as the waves swallowed it into its depth. No one (not even him) will ever know what was written on there; it’s a secret between me and the ocean. This is why I will always have a special bond with LA because it is the place that taught me what closure really means.

It’s not waiting for him to tell me what I needed to hear. Or hoping he would woke up one day to genuinely apologize and realize he made a mistake. And it’s definitely not wasting time still being in love with someone that has long moved on with someone new. I didn’t want to be in California or any other corner of the world dreaming about what life could have been with him or wondering if I should have done things differently.

That’s the thing about closure–it’s not something someone says that makes you feel better or something he could have given me. It’s something I had to give myself. It was a single moment when I was standing on the pier, tossing the note away, and tears streaming down my face that I decided to snap this invisible string of attachment and loyalty that still connected me with him and the idea of “us” that I was still holding onto. That feeling that came afterwards; the feeling of relief, lightness and just being alive again after what felt like months of drowning– that was closure.

By no means am I completely whole again and I do think about him time to time: the first time I met him outside a bar after too much tequila, the first time we ever kissed; the first time I told him I thought he was perfect, the first time he ever called me his girl, the first time I woke up next to him, and the first time I realized I was in love with him when I was sitting at a restaurant in London. That’s the thing about your first real love and heartbreak–you can never truly forget it completely.

But the other thing about first real heartbreaks is that they make you wiser. I know now what I didn’t last year: all the doors of opportunity that opened were my doing, he never had the power to destroy me, I can carry on even with many different damaged versions of myself, I can fall in love again with someone new that will give me his time and attention without having to ask for it, and I know I want to be consumed by a kind of love that is in its most purest and wholesome form. This is closure: mustering courage to end one journey that catalyzes personal growth and empowerment to start a new adventure with unwavering optimism and undying fire in one’s spirit.