Writing Myself the Letters of Closure
learning to let it go with an open heart and eyes watered with tears
The truth is that the party is over, and it has been over for years. As much as I have said that to myself I am still finding myself stuck at the house with the confetti on the floor, and the wave of bottles in the trash that overflow. With your outsiders eyes, you could say I found fun holding onto the past with this tight drunken grip, but with my own eyes I see myself clutching to what I still lack closure of. Avoiding the rain outside, or even the sunshine because how could these days go on so gracefully when there is something so ambivalent lacking in my life.
The end of this revealing and irrevocable spring is just around the corner. April gave me lessons I wouldn't have learned if I decided to stay away from the mirror but now that I have seemed to stand in front of it for a long amount of awaited time, there is nothing much I can hide from— nothing much anyone can hide from now. I do feel guilty about that. My beauty felt overdone, and my attitude felt breakable, my legs strong from sitting at the party for too long, yet weak from the truth that crashes me down each time my ears hear the words spoken to ones that weren't supposed to be mine. But I listen anyway, through the wall of my mothers room to hear a conversation about something I await closure on. ‘Maybe that conservation will get me outside of this dead party’ I think to myself each time, yet it only makes the exit deeper, and deeper in. The kind of clarity that will bring from any form of goodbye would make my coffin open still doesn't exist in their vocabulary.
Why do I hold on to it all for this long? Because it was lovely. There were moments of it that haunted my soul, yet so beautifully. I felt more alive, more real in my own body when I could recall back to something that once fulfilled me with such a desire to live and to let it go would be losing what I know, losing all that hope in it ever returning, losing that comfort I fell in the sadness which seems to be the feeling I am most home in because I have lived in it for so long.
There has been a lot of growing up. It wasn’t something I could ignore so swiftly. I have learned most things that take time and that there is a false truth to the freedom that overnight promises. The real truth is, you can't forget something that you have built yourself upon for years— that could go for anything such as a person you’ve known most of your life, an addiction that’s consumed you for years, a home you’ve moved out of that felt like the only safe place you’ve known.
I came to terms with this last night. Everyone was either well sleep, or on the brink of it except for me. I find that this hour of the night provides me to think with no interruptions so I like to bask in it for as much as I can before feeling the sense of crashing down. I thought it was rich and profound enough to explore. The more my mind wrapped around it, the more I realized how true it was. I think that it’s time I write myself the letter of closure because a house can’t write that, an addiction can’t spell, and that certain person in my life also seems to be the smallest person to live— you’re not gonna get anything from a dried up grape even if you desire their words of the end.
It’s not easy. Knowing myself, I’m gonna stumble and fall, I’m going to speak through tears how I’m not strong enough, but the truth is I am. With much patience, much guidance, much grace, I am strong enough for anything. Even writing this I still doubt myself but I’m going to let this truth sit with its ink because it will become true. If I learn it now, then unlearn it in the future, I have what I’ve written to shift my perspective back to what I know is faithful. This could become a way home that's roads I need to learn to memorize. I’m only seventeen and there is only so much that I know and only so much that I have lived. There is going to be closure in my future, this may not be the only part I find myself stuck at.
This year is already going to burden me with a handful of goodbyes and changes. I’m not looking forward to it. I find myself comfortable with what I know now, and seem to fear what I’ve never seen. That will always be a part of me since it always has, but maybe just this once my eyes can see a little better and I can breathe a little more effortlessly. Maybe that house wasn’t supposed to be the only place I know, maybe I was meant for much more outside of these Southern California suburbs. And Maybe my value doesn't belong in the hands of a raisin but instead it belongs in who I have with me here, the ones who have stuck by my side, the ones who have never left when I cried. There is closure in that as much as there is sadness. Moving on from something good or something bad is always going to bring up a feeling that is bittersweet, but there is always a promise that is greater than any imagination, and hurt or fear.
I will allow myself to remain fragile. There is nothing bad in showing how you feel. Closure might break me; When I leave the party I might just go back into my bed to break then to heal; but to heal is to always come back stronger each time. Let yourself take the time, let yourself write the letters, burn them, and start over. To accept this and let it go would make me the freest I have been. It’s going to feel abnormal to say the least, but sooner then later the past will feel the most strange on my skin.
“I know that I’m not easy to love. No, I fight demons though I do try to get better; I cry myself to sleep simply because the work to be done is too much; I seem to overthink and ware myself out; I hold many scars on my arms, my thighs, my hips; but I still wish there is someone, somewhere to see the beauty in-between those lines. Maybe they will see what I’ve yet to see myself.” February 26th, 2024
“My heart broke. I moved out of home and into the city and I made new friends and I started to realize that no-one is just good or bad, that everyone is both. I started to discover in a profound, scary, blood-aching way who I was when I was alone, what I did when I did things only for myself. I was reckless and graceless and terrifying and tender. I threw sprawling parties and sat in restaurants until the early house, learning what it’s like to be an adult, even talking like one sometimes, until I caught myself. All I wanted to do was dance. I whispered into ears and let my eyes blaze on high and for the first time I felt this intimate, empire-sized inner power.” — Lorde, A NOTE FROM THE DESK OF A NEWBORN ADULT (2016)
“Nothing kills you slower than letting someone go”
That is all for this newsletter, thank you very much for reading! If you took anything away from whatever I felt I had to say then it's sure to put a smile on my face. Feel free to subscribe to September's Tears below to keep up on my newsletters in the future.
With all of the love, xoxoxo