Closure: Part Two.
When a new haircut just won't do it.
Hello lovely!
How was your week?
I had a wonderful day out in the sun today (it’s Saturday), I’ve caught a nice glow from being in the fields, and I’ve just been having a look on Instagram at hairstyles. I am obsessed with 90’s blowouts right now, and I’m excited to get my hair done asap! I’m so glad that these have made a comeback because when I was at school, layers and feathers were the thing. Fashion might come and go, but you just cannot replace classic style!
It’s been almost two years since I’ve had my hair cut, which is wild considering at one point I used to get my hair done every quarter. I’ve had pretty much every style that I can think of (short of dreadlocks), so at the moment, my hair is just growing. So much so, that it is now touching my bum and the ends have gone a little “dry”. My hair could most definitely do with a bit of love that’s for sure, and boy oh boy is it overdue!
Getting my hair done is a big deal for me (well it was), and growing up I really bought into the saying, “cut that man right outta your hair” after a break-up. I honestly can’t count the number of times that I’ve booked a hair appointment, each one on the back of me saying “right, that’s it”, after yet another heartache, and getting myself into the mindset of, “sod it, I don’t need him”.
Off I’d go to the hairdressers, with an idea of the hairstyle that I wanted (iPhones were not a thing back then, and yes my age is showing), and I’d be all ready to come out of the salon feeling like Cindy Crawford. I’d sit in the chair, let the hairdresser do their thing and work their magic, but about half way through, my smile would start to slowly fade and instead, be replaced by a look of confusion as I would be watching those scissors snip away and wondering, “what is happening there…?”
My stomach would be telling me all that I needed to know: this haircut is not going to go the way that I had envisioned. The discomfort would start to set in, and I would start to pay attention to every little snip and mirror check. The picture I had brought in along with the smile I had at this point had left the salon. Then the hairdresser would proudly show the big reveal holding the mirror behind my head, and I would be sat there with something that resembled a lamp shade where my new haircut should be. This happened several times, and after one particularly bad haircut, I went home and just cried.
It is worth mentioning that I have very thick hair, and because of this I literally hunted out a good hairdresser who would be able to understand how to work with it: not every hairdresser has been able to. Now I have met my hairdresser, and whilst appointments are like a needle in a haystack, he is worth the wait. Don’t let just anyone touch that hair on your head.
A mani/pedi is also a wonderful way to get yourself feeling a bit better even if it’s all you can do when you are doing your best to move on from a relationship, and I am a huge fan of anything massage or treatment related. However (sadly), a good manicure doesn’t last, there are only so many massages or treatments you can get, and there are only so many haircuts you can have in order to help you to move on.
It can be said, in my experience anyway, that whilst tried and trusted methods can and absolutely do work even if they are temporary fixes, they can’t always be trusted. Whilst they are definitely a good start, when you require closure, that bad boy just doesn’t seem to go away and requires a bit more of a closer look.
In last week’s letter I shared how to get closure, and that I would share a process in this letter that would assist you in getting the closure that you deserve.
However when I read the letter back, it struck me that it just didn’t read authentically enough because it had been guided by the intention of sharing an invitation to a process that would assist you in moving forward. So rather than allow myself to feel the depth of what I wanted to speak and to be present with that, I felt I had almost glided over it. I robbed myself of closure by doing so - the irony.
Despite A Love Story being about sharing my lessons from life and love, by no means does this mean I am some sort of expert. Yes I work as a Coach, however that doesn’t mean that I am not human. I am on my journey and there are things I am understanding about myself with each day, with more clarity, the more I come to a more grounded space in my life after a very long time of feeling as though I was just lost.
If there’s one thing any kind of relationship should be, it’s authentic. This is how trust is built, because there is a sense of safety there. Your body and mind aren’t looking for hidden words that aren’t being said, even though you can feel them.
Anything built on an ulterior motive no matter how well intended, is not a strong foundation for any relationship. And if there is anything I respect and look for in anyone, it’s that.
So I will get to sharing that process with you, in an invitation I will send this week. Until then, it turns out I had to make a little re-visit to the past myself before I could move forward.
Every story no matter what the genre, as we know, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And when you read a story, you don’t just skip to the end, you read it page by page. And sometimes those pages can feel as though they are never going to end, especially when you are trying to understand what the story was all about.
After publishing last week’s letter, I asked a male friend how it read. Having him share his perspective was great feedback, especially knowing how the topic of closure landed for a man and understanding that his experience overall had been no different to what I had experienced. Whilst the situations were different, we had struggled with the same things when it came to understanding how to get closure.
When I read his feedback I also realised that as deep as I felt I went with the first part, on looking back when I had been writing it, I literally said to myself at the time that I wasn’t willing to go any further. I felt I had gone deep enough. Perhaps that’s because I am now further along in my own life: it has been five years since my last relationship, and therefore I don’t feel as able to go back to that point and really feel those emotions in order to be able to write a letter now about the topic in a way which might feel more raw and more present to that. So I wrote about it in a way that was true to what I was moving through, as the past had popped back up again.
Another thing that became apparent to me is that despite the fact that I would cry my eyes out when I was moving through the end of a relationship thinking that was me processing, is that whilst the crying was natural, I wasn’t truly sitting with the emotions and letting them be what they needed to be without trying to hurry myself in some way. I thought once I had cried I should be able to move on from it all - as though I was getting it all out so to speak. It didn’t even occur to me that the emotions I was feeling required more time to simply be.
So when I read the letter, I was so aware that I was trying to skip to the “end” part of, because speaking about that topic requires a level of vulnerability that is rarely shared when it comes to it and I find that a challenge. That doesn’t mean that I will be diving into this letter and going to the depths to explore, but I do feel this topic of closure really does deserve its own series so to speak without the interruption of anything else, and for me to be present with it. I will instead share the process that has helped me move forward in a separate invitation that I will send to you this week.
I come back to the familiar words that I would hear at the end of each breakup, “you’ll get over it, it will get better”. And of course things do and did get better. In their own way. And we are all the more beautiful for our experiences no matter how they have occurred. Kind of like those Japanese plates that are fixed with gold when they get broken, and are kept that way in order to honour the story of the plate.
“Maybe I didn’t fix my plate with gold”. This is the thought that I came to when I wrote the above, and then I tried to figure out how I haven’t done that. I feel like I have done this part over and over again in countless guises, and yet somehow the past has managed to catch up with me again five years on, despite me thinking everything was getting better.
At one point during a very challenging time after the divorce (which was over 12 years ago now), I used the word “broken”, because that is genuinely how I felt. And it took me a heck of a long time to “fix” that plate. The good news is that I am no longer in that space anymore, but it took a heck of a lot to climb my way back to what felt like light and sanity.
I would make myself go to the gym every day in order to find some structure, and I would be lifting weights and doing my best to not cry: little did I know that just by lifting the weights I was activating all the hurt and upset that my body was holding onto. I did whatever I could do to keep myself moving, and I kept wanting to get over the hurt and to do it as fast as possible, because I did not know what to do with all that pain.
In doing so I wasn’t able to be present in a way which honoured that part of my experience, and instead rather than dealing with things, I tried to hurry myself through it all which when I think about it, is cruel. It’s cruel to be in pain and hurting and to tell yourself “hurry up, come on”. Why do we expect ourselves to have to function like that?
It also meant that I wasn’t seeing with clarity: the emotions just clouded me and I went into survival mode.
So in this letter I won’t be sharing more of what I went through as such, but more so how to move through getting closure in a way that serves who you are and who you will become. Because, hindsight is a wonderful thing when you have it.
Back to the question of sitting with your emotions. This is the hardest part: how do you do that when it hurts so much?”
The question I come back with is “what advice would I give myself back then based on what I know now?”
Without a doubt, it would be to get some assistance with this part. This is the most loving thing I could do considering I was telling myself in one way or another to hurry up. Ideally this would be in the form of a qualified therapist, because the hurt can be so deep that you can drown and get lost in the emotions. And if you have no idea how to process these healthily (I definitely did not), then having someone to sit with you as you do so could likely be the shift that you need as for a start, they can help co-regulate your nervous system as you move through some deep stuff (be sure to work with someone who is trauma informed).
I would also take away the word “fix”: you are not “broken” because you are whole. You are hurting, this is natural. Your language can mean everything, so perhaps even choose a different word to closure. Perhaps the word that you are looking for is “understanding”. When I look at that word and try it on in this context, for me it feels less about the other person, and re-focuses my attention back to myself. It also pre-supposes that I would then need to ask better questions in order to understand, which is more empowering than the question “why”. That one goes no where.
Speaking to others about how I feel is something that I actually find very difficult, so if this is also you, you are in good company. By nature, I am a very private person: writing these letters is my therapy. However I do find it a challenge to sometimes articulate what I feel in a way that means I am able to fully feel it and connect to it.
So seeking out assistance to speak to someone about things that I might not necessarily even allow myself to look at or be with, could be the gold in my plate that I have been searching for, not the answers from the other person.
After all, those emotions are mine. The responses to what happened are mine. The questions I have are mine. Whatever comes up for me as a result of any experience, is mine. This does not let the other person off the hook from being kind, mature or accountable for their own role in what occurred.
However, how I move through something is my response-ability, and in a situation where the other person is not available to provide honesty or clarity, then it is up to me to take control and look out for myself just as I would with someone that I love if they were going through something. It is up to me to take care of myself. So being pro-active about this can provide a sense of agency during a time when it can be easy to feel as though you have none.
What other advice would I give myself?
When any relationship “ends” , especially when there has been no real conversation, it can knock you in ways that you thought you had coped with or moved through before, and suddenly you’re dealing with a whole bunch of ghosts. So I would say now, be intentional with that time.
Being intentional can make all the difference between just moving through something endlessly. By choosing to say “I am going to be present to what I am experiencing”, it can take the pressure off of yourself from having to hurry through it. This can mean that at some point later down the line, you aren’t then surprised by something if it crops up. You are able to see it for what it is, and because you chose to be present to it at the time, you were able to make peace with what happened and it does not rock your world.
Being intentional at the time and facing what is occurring, not running from it, can mean you are then able to see more clearly that that you have options and resources available to assist you.
So I would also now tell myself to go get a space to be able to just be, as having this intentional space would provide a healthy room to be with what needed to be felt.
Ideally this would be somewhere quiet like a retreat where everything else can be taken care of. If this isn’t a possibility, then I would go somewhere quiet. It could be the forest, a temple, or a room that is separate to the one that you sleep in because this is for rest.
As much as we have all had times when we have cried ourselves to sleep, keeping your bedroom as your space to let your body rest would probably help a lot.
Grief is exhausting to move through and if you are on your own and you don’t seek assistance, then just having a room in which none of this gets to come with you at night can create the “mental” space for you to at least get a good night’s sleep. The rest, I would like to think, would help bring about some clarity so that you start to feel better as you move through things.
It can be all too easy to want to move on quickly with things: but life doesn’t work like that. Over the past week I kept finding myself wanting to hurry up and just be living the life I feel like I should be living now. I kept trying to be “there” and found myself frustrated that I am still here. However, there is no “there”: this will happen all by itself and even then, there will be another “there”. The future is something you just cannot hold, neither is your past. The present really is all you have to work with, so perhaps whilst it isn’t the gift you wanted, the non-closure and what it is asking of you in order for you to be able to feel it, is the gift you need. You just can’t hurry life. This is an opportunity for you, even though it won’t feel like it.
So take your time, be intentional with that time, seek out assistance so that you don’t feel as though you are walking through a jungle or drowning out at sea on your own. This is your opportunity to really be with the you that feels and to get to know yourself.
Scary.
Yet this is still you and your life. The moment is still beautiful, and it is still a part of your experience. Be with that. Your future self will thank you. Not scary.
Whilst I was writing this letter I felt as though the past six months that I took as an intentional pause from writing has been about me getting closure on the past 20 years of my life and a whole chapter which quite frankly felt like I was shedding layer after layer just trying to find my way back to myself.
Hindsight as they say, really is a wonderful thing, because now you can see all the things that you wish you had done, and now you get to do them differently.
When I look at the choices I have made previously, I realise that they were led by what others had wanted, not what I had wanted. So I felt as though I was at the mercy of how others showed up. Or so I thought. I just hadn’t paid close enough attention at the time to what I was telling myself and what I needed. Had I done, I could have made a different choice. And had I not lived from a space of “needing” or “fear”, I most definitely would have done so.
That fear came from truly not being grounded in who I was, not having clarity on that, and really not taking my time with my own choices and life.
So it seems, as much as I had wanted to get to the “fun” part of moving forward and to share the process that had I created with you to assist you in moving forward with your life, a choice and a decision needed to be made.
Simply to be intentional.
You really do need to close the door to the past if you are going to experience a new chapter. You really cannot take the past with you into that.
So before I send that invitation this week, make a choice: do you want to move forward, or do you need to be with something that you haven’t dealt with or have been running from before you feel like you can? Be with that question before moving on.
Be honest with yourself. Take care of you properly. This means, being there for you. This may not sound fun, and it can most definitely feel painful, but that will pass. This kind of pain really is an illusion, it is there because you are not seeing what’s right beneath it. An opportunity.
That seed is already planted, but you have to let go of what’s getting in the way of the you that is wanting to emerge as a result.
This isn’t about doing the work. This is about being.
Lessons & Learnings:
- Perspective is everything: if you look for something, you will find it. Choose with intention what you want to see and experience.
- Know that there is assistance at any point in your journey should you ever choose it. It could make a huge difference to your life, but either way whatever you choose, you’ve got this.
- Trust that there is beauty even in the messy parts. Learn to be with those parts because in those times, you might just find the very thing that you need is right there.
- Be intentional with your time, create a space which is just for you to be, and be there regularly.
- Take your time: nobody is expecting you to rush through anything.
- It really is ok to not be ok. If you needed to hear that, you can let yourself breathe.
- Closure will come to you when you choose to have it. You have to want to close that chapter, or close that door. This took me until now to understand that (no lie, I got that just as I was typing these words). It can take a heck of a lot to make a Cancerian let go of something, however you have to if you are going to move on with your life.
- Don’t be afraid to get closure. The end is merely a new beginning of a transition that seems a little messy. It has to be: you are moving on. It’s like re-decorating.
- Never let what someone else does be the reason that it hurts how you show up and see the world. That is their choice, and their experience. They get to choose how they treat people and on the back of it, the reality that that shapes for them. You get to choose for you: be sure to stay true to that. You are a beautiful person because of your experiences.
- You will find your way. Have a cup of tea ready for when you feel like you can’t. Truly, there is nothing a good cuppa and good company can’t solve.
Your journey does not end when a relationship does. And even then the relationship hasn’t ended, it hasn’t, it has changed. This messy part is a part of your journey, it’s not separate to it just because of the fact that it looks messy. Love it all the same, not just the good parts. Everything is an opportunity.
Treat yourself exactly how you treat others: don’t focus on treating others how you want to be treated. That will see to itself in a healthy and grounded way when you start with you first, but most importantly, it will be authentic and you will know when to listen to yourself.
To live the life that I want to live, I have to intentionally choose it. In order to do that, I have to be the one to let the past go.
From now on, I am no longer choosing the near-misses, the “lessons” or the “could have beens”. I don’t want the indecisiveness, the confusion or the endless questions. The me who put up with that, is now putting that all down. It’s not for me thanks. It’s a no.
It’s been 20 years of getting to know who I am. Now it’s about being intentional with who I share who I am with, and how, because it turns out, that all the love that I kept looking for “out there”, was right here: in me.
Whilst quite a big chapter of my life is officially over and done, my story isn’t. Ironically, I feel like I have gotten to this decision point as a result of being intentional, taking my time to do so, and by providing assistance with the topic of closure in these letters. As a result, I have ended up making my own peace. Making peace might not be how you would like to receive closure, but you will for sure be one heck of a stronger person for it. For that, truly, I salute you. Keep going, you beautiful human.
I hope this letter assisted you in some way, even if you aren’t seeking closure. Perhaps it just provided you with some inspiration.
Either way, I wish you a wonderful day and start to your week: be sure to look out for a special invitation from me at some point mid-week, because if you found value from reading this series on closure, then this invitation will be like a next step in your journey.
With love,
P.S. I’d love to find out more about you, what brought you to A Love Story, and what lessons from life and love you would like to hear about - let me know in the comments below!