Closure is just another word for holding on

Closure never came, but peace still did.

What if I could have one more conversation? One more laugh? One more hug? Would i feel any different? Would they feel any different? Would everything change? Or could i just have a perfectly neat ending, a mutual understanding to be able to fix things and walk away lighter. That’s what the movies teach us anyway: the big scene where everything finally makes complete sense and you’re a free bird.

That's not how I've ever felt closure has worked, closure feels like waiting for a text that never comes. It feels sour. It feels like convincing yourself you need answers, when in reality you just want one more moment – one last memory. We call it closure, but really – isn't it just another way of staying connected a little bit longer?

The hard truth is that healing doesn't happen in some magical climactic goodbye. It sneaks up on you months later – when you’re clearing your camera roll and stumble across a picture you took of them when they still had love in their eyes. When you’re on the motorway and pass their city and wonder what would happen if you saw them again. When a friend suggests going to a cafe you used to go to with them and suddenly the lost memories, the golden memories come flooding back. Healing isn’t a single event; it unfolds quietly, while life carries you forward.

Why we crave closure

Closure is a myth built on longing. When something ends – a relationship, a friendship even a vivid dream, our minds scramble to try and tie the loose ends together. We crave an explanation that would soothe the pain. But often, closure isn’t really about answers. It's about clinging to the last thread of connection:

• Hoping for a new memory to forget the dark ones

• Hoping they’d change their mind after they see you or you woo them with your wit

• Wanting proof that what you had was real, that it was just as deep for them as it was for you

Where is the real healing?

Healing rarely comes to us in a grand moment of clarity. One day you realise you no longer rely on their phone calls to help you sleep, instead you engross yourself into a substack essay on closure (hello fourth wall). You pass the same cafe where you used to meet and your chest doesn’t tighten. You hear their name, and your heart doesn’t plumet to your stomach anymore.

It happens naturally, like a cut that heals itself, almost without your say. It’s not closure that heals us, but time, self-love and that steady return to our innate selves.

فَإِنَّ مَعَ ٱلْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا

“Verily with hardship comes ease”

Not “closure” not a perfectly curated ending, ease comes uninvited, after hardship – usually when we’ve stopped searching for it. In Islam, yearning itself is sacred, it's a sign that the heart remembers its source. In Japanese aesthetics there’s mono no aware (物の哀れ) which is translated as an “empathy toward things”, it’s an awareness of impermanence and the bittersweet beauty that comes with it. Both suggest that pain isn’t a problem to fix, rather it's a companion to honor and feel in order for healing to occur.

What I've learned about letting go

I’ve chased closure before, drafting texts that were never sent, wanting to create a memory in a one last chance scenario. It never brought peace, what did was simple – sitting with the pain instead of trying to solve it. Choosing to put myself first and let time do what time does best. I may not have had that dramatic concluding scene, but I finally found room to breathe again. Now – on to new beginnings.