We like our endings neat. A final conversation, a last goodbye, a neat explanation, anything that helps us make peace with the loss.  

But what happens when none of that comes? 

Not in the way you want it to. 

Not when you’re ready. 

You might be left staring at the silence, waiting for a message that doesn’t arrive or maybe you are still rehearsing a conversation in your head that will never happen. Some goodbyes don’t sound like goodbye at all they just fade out. The person drifts, the connection frays and one day you look around and realize you're grieving something you never got to name. We keep waiting for something like an apology, an explanation, a sign, something to help us tie the story up with a little bow so we can finally move on. 

It is like we have been conditioned to believe that we need to understand the ending to start over. We keep ourselves stuck in a loop thinking if we just wait a little longer, understand a little better maybe the pain will soften. But healing doesn’t always wait for an explanation. Sometimes healing begins the moment you stop waiting for someone else to give you permission to move forward. 

Closure isn’t always a door that gets closed by someone else. Sometimes it’s a decision you make on a random Tuesday afternoon not because everything makes sense now, but because you’re tired of handing your peace over to a question that may never be answered. 

There is grief in that. There is frustration. There is longing. 

But there is also power. 

If you keep waiting, that space stays filled with questions, absence, silence and control. In the moment you stop waiting, for an explanation or confession or for someone to fix, it creates space. When you choose to stop waiting even without all the answers that space starts to shift. 

You begin to regrow maybe not all at once, but you grow every time you let go of needing a perfect explanation and slowly, you stop surviving in hope. You start living in reality. 

Maybe you won’t get that neat ending and the questions will stay. But you’ll learn how to carry them without letting them shape your days, you will learn how to make meaning from what you do have and you will realise that healing was never about having the full story it was about finding your way forward with the pieces that remained. 

That’s what closure can look like too! 

If you or somebody you know struggles finding closure, consider reaching our Support and Engage verticals for affordable and inclusive help! 

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