I don’t believe in closure. I think emotions are a bottomless well. Just when you/I think there is resolution/conclusion to an event/a situation/an emotional state, something arises, appears that can set off an entirely new set of feelings. Something more to look at, to ponder, to work through. For me, there is no such thing as closure.
On Sounds Like Canada Wednesday morning, the topic was caring for your elderly and/or ailing parents. A woman was talking about caring for her ex-husband. She had long before come to peace about the divorce so it was not a working on the past, she said. But it was, she also said, some kind of closure. And I could hear the question in her voice around the word closure. She knew, it seemed to me, that there could always be more.
I don’t know if I could or would take care of my ex-husband. It’s not a possibility at this point. He lives in NYC and we don’t have much communication. We didn’t have an easy separation. Lots of unpleasant feelings for a long time afterward. I did see him a year or so ago. It was interesting, pleasant enough. No real problem. No big aftermath. Just a visit.
After my mother died, it took me ten years before I stopped having shocking dreams about her, dreams that woke me shaking from an image of her still alive but inevitably dying. It was many years after that before I could think about her without some kind of lingering childhood emotion. I’m not sure I can even now but at least I am not acting on it (as often). And I think that is more important than closure.
Posted by leya at December 9, 2007 06:25 PM