Sometimes not having closure can be a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, it can be one of the worst things to never get. You can spend so much time and energy constantly analyzing what went wrong when you are never given a reason for why things turned out the way they did. 

You can have made up conversations that never take place that make you cry. Sometimes it’s sort of like giving yourself closure. You can say to them what you want and can feel empowered. Yet you still also feel really sad. The end result is always the same… it’s over. 

Naturally we look to ourselves for blame. What did we do to make things end? Why did they leave us? Why didn’t we get the decency of knowing why they decided to go away? 

We spend so much time asking ourself these questions. We make up scenarios if they were to ever contact us with just the simplest message and then we have a 27 paragraph response of everything we want to say. 

But we never get to say them… because they will never contact us. Some people make a decision and never look back. That doesn’t mean at times they might not think about you or regret their choice… but they don’t change their mind. Maybe it’s pride, maybe it’s not wanting to go back to the past.

But there’s one thing the lack of closure can give you… an alternate ending. An ending that might not be real but you get to believe is real so that you can move on. 

Don’t get me wrong, I myself am not even there yet. But since I don’t know why my story ended the way it did… I get to decide why. Instead of trying to analyze everything I ever said or did, I can acknowledge that while I probably did things that upset or bothered that person, nothing was unforgivable. Nothing was something we couldn’t have talked about or worked through if they truly wanted me in their life. I’m starting to think they had to deal with so much toxicity that they can’t avoid… it’s there in the family… it’s at work. That if one thing seeming goes wrong that they can walk away from… they do… for their own sanity. Sure it’s not fair, and you should be given another chance, but they are choosing what’s best for them in that moment. You are collateral damage, but it doesn’t mean you are damaged.

It’s a tough place to be because I have to realize that to them I wasn’t someone worth putting in effort for. I was simply someone they got annoyed with and decided to never talk to again. Without a warning and without repeated infringements. 

But again, I need to move on. I need to stop thinking about all this sadness… about why I wasn’t enough for them. So I get to write a new ending. Since the actual ending is unknown to me…

Instead of thinking that this person cut me out of their life because they don’t care about me…. I get to make my own ending. For instance, instead of what could possibly be true… like the fact they untagged themself in all of our photos together… my mind immediately went to the thought of them trying to erase me from their life. That they don’t even want other people to know we were ever friends or associated with one another. 

But what if instead I change that narrative… regardless of the actual reasoning… since I don’t know what that is and this version is so heartbreaking and painful… what if instead I imagine it is hard for them. Although it seems unlikely and out of character for them to spend time missing me or even thinking about me… but I have to give them some type of humanity to move on.

So the new narrative goes that instead of them wanting to disassociate from me, they untagged themselves because seeing photos of us together is a painful reminder of what they lost. Even though it was their choice to end things and walk away… they still have their own feelings and thoughts. 

For instance… they could read me giving them space and time to heal and work out problems in other areas of their life as me being upset, mad, and petty. Maybe they think I’m the one that moved on. 

Communication is always important and I would have explained everything, but they never gave me a chance. So they have their own narrative of why things ended and why they aren’t communicating with me. So I get to make this a part of the narrative. That they do realize they are missing out on having someone great in their life and they don’t want to be reminded of that because they don’t want to deal with those emotions or feelings. So instead of dealing with them, it’s easier to erase me and make it so I never existed. That’s how they are choosing to move on. They have to go back and revisit other connections and try to make up for the emptiness they now feel. It doesn’t look hard for them, but maybe it’s a part of the show.

That’s how they operate. Sure, that’s not you… or me. Me? I’ve cried nearly every day for the past two months… wondering to myself when it will stop feeling so raw and so painful. I constantly wonder about things and think ahead to the future. I’ve been in anguish over the missed holidays and not being able to send them kind messages. How I now have to take others to the birthday celebration I had planned for them. I know there are still going to be plenty of days ahead where I feel broken and unable to move forward. So I will do what I can with the lack of closure and the lack of knowing and perhaps give myself a happier ending. Where where I am at times missed and still thought of, but they can’t let anyone else know that. Sure I wear my heart on my sleeve and have emotions so big, even I’m sick of them. But all those emotions will one day be put to good use. I will find other people to love and give my time and energy to, while also trying to do that more with the other really amazing people I have in my life.

This loss feels huge and I’ll probably always think about them. I just hope one day I can do that without crying.