Closure.
It’s a concept that has captivated me for years—I'm pretty sure it's what most of my art is about; it’s what I attempt to explore and understand in different shapes and forms through film, through writing, through music, and sometimes through other people. How do you know once it’s been achieved? Is closure something you can feel developing organically over time, or is it something you create for yourself with intent? Can you decide to find closure, or does it find you? Does closure have to be something concrete, or can it be found in the acceptance that right now, there may just not be any at all?
I think maybe it’s a bit of everything.
I think I finally found my closure, or the closest thing I'll get to it, in my last two weeks I spent in Canada. For those of you just joining my blog now, my life has been somewhat of a whirlwind for the past 5 months. I lost someone I believed to be the love of my life, and I made the decision to leave my Undergraduate program a year early to pursue a Masters in Art Direction half way across the world in Berlin, Germany. I met somebody new, when I wasn't yet ready for it at all, and it has knocked me off my feet. My beloved pet passed away very suddenly, and things are moving almost faster that I feel I can keep up with. Now, I am about to leave everything and everyone I know behind to embark on this new journey that can guarantee me absolutely nothing but more of the unknown. That used to terrify me.
For the past 5 months I’ve been waiting—Living in a constant limbo that consists of grudgingly planning for a life and a future I am supposed to be so excited for, but is still just full of people and places that are nothing but foreign ideas to me and exist only in my head. To those of you like me, that get nervous about the idea of change, but will yourselves to pursue it anyway, I'm sure you can understand this. I'm also still trying to enjoy my last few months in Canada and get absolutely everything I can out of this place, as I don't know when I'll be back again. I'm trying to prepare everyday to somehow move on from this beautiful life has been so comfortable but complacent for me.
For the past 5 months, I’ve woken up every morning terrified of all the people and things I feel I am leaving behind by starting this next chapter of my life. My parents and friends have had to support me to no end and have dragged me kicking and screaming towards the goals I know deep down I am destined for, but am just too scared to take the leap for on my own because of all the things I feel I could lose in this process of change.
I spent some of my last days in Canada back in Kingston, my University town, and the place I love and have called home with the people I have created some of my happiest memories with for the past four years.
I was worried that watching everyone I knew and loved move on and continue with their lives around me would make me think of all the important milestones I’ll be missing in this life if I go away now. Instead, I think I finally grasped how special and unique so many of the relationships I’ve made here really are, and that with a little effort, connections and relationships like these are independent of time and space, and can and will follow me wherever I go.
I was worried that seeing the boy I used to love again would completely set me back and potentially ruin all the progress I’ve made to become strong again on my own in the past few months. Instead, I got to look into the eyes of the boy I had wanted to spend my life with, and realized that in this summer we have spent apart, he’s grown into a man. I honestly don't know if this changes anything with us, but it does make me think that people can change, and can grow, and really can start to become the best versions of themselves when left on their own for a while. I love him, deeply, and will love him forever, but if we ever do decide to be together again, I think I need it to be entirely because we have both had the courage to let go, and then have both decided to chose each other all over again.
I still don't know how the new man I met this summer fits into any of this at all, and why I had to meet such an incredible and remarkable human when I was still so unprepared for it. He just happens to be moving to Europe as well, and I really have no idea what the universe is trying to tell me with this one. I don't believe I have the capacity or room in my life right now for what this person or relationship could potentially be or mean to me if I let it in, but I wonder if someday it will feel right for me to try.
While I am still not ready to fully close the door on the man I used to love and visualized my future with for the past two years, meeting someone new like this has allowed me to untether myself from that future to make space for the idea of a totally different one. I thought that might feel scary and a little sad when it happened, but it actually feels incredibly exciting and freeing. It feels like I have the freedom to choose my future now, instead of being tied to the things I used to feel didn't give me a real chance to.
Life really is the strangest game of all, and sometimes you find exactly what you need when you don't want it, or exactly what you wanted when you realize you just don't need it anymore.
Going forward, it will be my choices that define me. And my choice right now is to focus on who I would like to be, with the faith that everything else will fall into place as I make the decisions that feel right for the person I become.
I have been able to find some kind of closure in realizing that the people I love and love me will not be going anywhere as long as I continue to invest in those important relationships for the rest of my life. I've also found closure in the knowledge and absolute certainty, that at this point, no matter how bizarre and unknown the future seems right now, I know I have truly allowed myself to feel and experience absolutely everything I can from the people I love and from the relationships I've built in this life, here. And for the first time in my life, I am going forward investing in the most important relationship of all; the one I have with myself.
This closure I've gained from finally accepting the unknown shows me that I am truly ready to move on from this phase of my life and embrace whatever comes next. Letting go has allowed me to move forward without fear of losing the things I realized I won't be losing anyway if they are meant to be there.
I am finally ready to allow myself to lean in to the positivity I can feel building all around me, and finally ready to let go of the negativity and fear that used to monopolize my thoughts and time. Ready to shift my focus from fixating on the things that do not add anything of value to my life, to make space for all of the things that I didn’t realize already are.
I started my University journey in Kingston four years ago, with similar fears and thoughts that I overcame with time, and which have led me to the point I find myself in today. Now, I am starting in on the next big journey, somewhere else, feeling entirely ready because of the people and experiences that have helped shape me and prepare me for this next chapter ahead.
With everything in me, I believe that this is moving forward, this is closure, and it all feels so incredibly exciting.
This is coming full circle, and being stronger for the next cycle ahead.
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