UNFINISHED

Closure may be a luxury.

Real life does not always wrap things up with a bow.

Some people disappear mid-conversation. Some love ends with a shrug. Some friends drift away, get outgrown, leave without a word.

From a young age, we are groomed with the narrative that says when there is a beginning, there should be an ending.

Beginning, middle, end.

But the moment we outgrow Disney, we realize reality paints a less pretty picture.

When our high school bff chooses a life radically different to ours; children or no children, career or no career, moving abroad versus staying where we were… the friendship quietly breaks.

Love, however intoxicating it once was, sometimes ends with

an unreturned text.

Later in life, we attend funerals where the important things never got said.

Many of us hold on. At the back of our closet are boxes we cannot throw away because throwing them away means it is really over.

But what truly kills are those questions that eat us alive. What did we do wrong? Were we so unlikable, unlovable? Why were we not enough? Why did they not fight for us? Were we supposed to fight harder?

Perhaps it is built into our mammalian design that we crave answers. We want certainty, a formula, a solid explanation for perplexity. And sometimes, in our attempt to reach the conclusion we so crave, we resort to the most convenient option: we blame ourselves.

Our brain fills the silence with our worst fears about ourselves. It writes stories where we are always the bad one, the one who did not try hard enough, was not good enough to be loved. Where we are too much or not enough.

When someone leaves without explanation, our brain cannot tolerate the void. Self-blame becomes the quickest cognitive shortcut. It is as though if we had caused the painful end, it means we somehow have more control. Or maybe, it’s just a familiar narrative we resort to when reality gives us pain but makes no sense.

Our so called answers usually come from narratives that are either never true or should have expired years ago. They come from the young one in us who learned early that when people leave, it must be our fault. That inner child still believes if we had just been better, quieter, easier to love, everyone would have stayed.

Stop. Our inner vulnerable one's feelings are real but do not point to the truth.

When we make up stories like that, we are trying to solve an equation where half the variables were never ours to hold.

People's leaving says nothing about your worth. Sometimes people leave because they are drowning in their own unhealed wounds. Sometimes they project their fears onto you. Sometimes they run from intimacy because closeness reminds them of old pain. Sometimes you see through them a bit too much, so they disappear because staying would mean facing themselves.

Have compassion. For them, yes; but mostly for yourself.

Here is what I have learned:

Some stories end mid-sentence. Some people leave without teaching you how to stop loving them.

So you learn to live with not knowing. You carry your unfinished stories; they weigh heavily some days, drift into the background on others.

Let grief come and go in waves.

Maybe that is the only closure we get: We grow into an adult who understands that is how life works. Accepting that some chapters end mid-sentence. That some people were meant to be question marks, not periods.

It is not peaceful, but it is the only version of reality we have.

Moving forward starts with coming to terms with the sorrow of incompleteness. But know also that you are more than this ending.

You do not need their permission to heal.

You do not need their explanation to move on.

You do not need to understand what happened to know you are going to be okay.

The Gift of Empathy: How generosity of spirit can transform your life