About four years ago, I started this blog to help cope with a devastating spell of depression that completely consumed me. Well, actually, that was edesse designs, the blog helped me to talk through my thoughts and document me as I was in it. And boy was I in it. I mean, it was, to date, the most painful experience I have ever been through. Before it started, I was at a point in my life where I felt like I was finally coming into myself. I was learning to love and learning to be open. I was productive and moving towards all those goals I had set for myself. However, within a span of a few months, I lost it all and hit rock fucking bottom.
If I could go back and pin point what triggered it AND was honest with myself, I'd say it was the day I opened myself to love and experienced it, only to have it taken away from me without notice or explanation, even when I tried to make whatever it is I did wrong, right. It left and it never came back. And it never will come back. And I will never know why any of it happened. At least from the one I no longer speak about.
That, my friends, was the hardest because I'm a mathematician and my nature is to solve the problem. But with this one I could not and I became consumed with what I now know was and is an impossibility. I was going to have to move on without an answer, for the first time in my life.
It took me a while to accept that and there are days when I do revert back to wanting answers. However, what helped me to move on without closure was the realization that I can only solve my own shit and can't possibly try to get into the gray matter of others.
I had a lot of shit to work on. During the time of my depression, I gained a lot of weight, lost my sense of purpose, lost focus, and flat lined. What I did was take control of what I could at each dark period in time. I could, for example, stop ordering food and eating it all in one setting and instead, go for a run. I could take the GRE and go back to school instead of trying to figure out what the one I no longer speak of was doing. I could forgive instead of hanging on to bitterness. I could choose to be happy when all I felt like being was sad. As I started to make better decisions and taking control of my destiny, things started to really change.
Today, some four years later, I have become a vastly different version of my former sad self. I'm happy and free and hopeful. I just graduated this spring with my Masters degree in Economics and Urban Planning. And, this fall, I'll start at Harvard University, studying to earn my doctorate in epidemiology and environmental health.
None of these amazing changes would have happened if I had not forced myself to move on without any semblance of closure. In doing so, I forced myself to work on me and I got to enjoy the fruits of doing so. And so did the people who chose to stick around. I am a better friend, too.
The one I no longer speak of is, and I quote from that horrible but addictive reality show, Basketball Wives (yes, I watch), a NON MOTHER FUCKING FACTOR. Ha ha. So simple but oh so true.
So, my answer to how you move on without closure is...you just do, with as big of a step as you can muster up. You walk away, in the opposite direction and trust in the universe to guide your journey. You also have to be honest with yourself and be open to facing and owning up to some unpleasant truths about yourself. For example, perhaps some of my actions created the beast who went on to break my heart. I accept that and I have changed that in me.
However, for as painful as it all is, it gets better. Have faith in and work towards that truth.
