Closure Is An Inside Job
Art by one of my favourite surrealists Leonora Carrington
As fond of words as I am, there are a few that niggle. Closure is such a beast, cloaked in false promise and with an alarming propensity to hold us stuck or frozen.
The term entered pop psychology in 1993 and came with its own Need For Closure Scale (truly!) created to determine where on the spectrum we tend to fall. Those at the high end, who crave order and structure and want life to be a known quantity, crave it. Those at the low end can live with ambiguity and uncertainty, tending to be more fluid and creative, with little to no need for external closures' questionable gifts.
Statistically the bulk of us would fall somewhere on the 42 points between an all consuming desire to tie the bow on the box for good and giving absolutely no fuqs. And there's nothing like Venus retrograde to remind us where resolution in relationship may be sorely lacking.
At the equinox Lady Love slipped from our sight, as she transitions from the evening star to the morning star (or vice versa depending which hemisphere you look up from). This 5 day disappearing act is the deepest part of her retrograde, when Dark Venus prods our unhealed relationship wounds. Here she asks us to look at the big picture: our history of love and relationship and more terrifyingly beyond that, our default state within it.
This is where the luggage feels heavy to still be dragging around. Where thorns of unforgiveness, resentment and bitterness show where they still fester. Where our chair on that closure scale is illuminated, even if we think we're loitering at the other end.
Love remains a function of our most important relationship: the one we have with ourselves. There is just no getting around that old chesnut. It is a bitter pill to swallow but if you keep having the same relationship with different versions of the same person, it is not all their fault. It is yours. If the same dynamics play out or you are treated the same shabby way, it is not all them. It is actually largely you. Taking the lead of Lady Venus and retreating solo to form a better relationship with yourself is its own reward (and why we are not supposed to hop from one affair to the next). Your relationship history tells the story of what you need and how you feel about yourself. What you think, deep down, you deserve. What you are scared to hope for. All that plus how influenced you are by dodgy rom-coms and Disneyfied fantasy.
If the ex files are still scattered all over your life unresolved, the progress you seek can only come from within. Start with forgiveness. If that horse sized pill sticks in your throat, examine only your own part in the saga of What Happened. Try to show unhelpful blame or pointless what if's the door. Sift through the well turned tale for new understanding and deeper compassion. Accept all that it was and wasn't. Pull the frame back to see its place in the bigger story of your life. Mine the depths for the shimmering nuggets of wisdom.
We all crave a happy ending but it never truly actually gets handed to us. Not by him. Not by her. Not after the dust has settled or that long interminable conversation has been had, or had once more. Closure is a gift we wrap and give to ourselves, over and over again.
Words c. Kerrie Basha, 2017