separation

“There exists, for everyone, a sentence—a series of words—that has the power to destroy you.”

—Phillip K. Dick

The thing about closure is that it is not necessarily an answer or an absolute. It’s the recognition of things beyond your control, of factors that make for difficult decisions. It is the acknowledgement that life is not plainly written in black-and-white, but painted in varying shades of grey. It simply means that you can no longer allow whatever it is to occupy such a prominent part of your thoughts. It means understanding that you cannot have everything, right at this moment.

It doesn’t mean you lose everything, all of the memories, the things that haunt you in your day-to-day life, the ghosts of your past. It doesn't mean that you don’t still love that person with all of your heart or forget that their smile could stop time for you. Sometimes it means trading one loose end for another, but admitting the whole time that you cannot know what the future holds.

It’s a very bittersweet satisfaction. While closure invites a sense of relief, there is a kind of hollowness that accompanies the absence of something that fit perfectly into your life like a puzzle piece. But most of all, there is a lingering craving for familiarity. It’s all of the exhilaration of setting sail into uncharted waters, and all of the terror of the unknown.

I don't know if I’m ready to accept that this is the end of the story. I only know that now is not the right time to figure it out.