Within the short span of my existence, I have faced a great deal of opposition – and, because of it, I have also learned a great deal of survival and perseverance. While I would never claim to be omniscient by any means, I do find it important to use this platform I’ve been given to disseminate any potential wisdom that I may have. With this series, the hope is to cover a range of topics and share the knowledge gained from my experience with feminity, queerness, financial insecurity, cultural identity struggles, relationships (platonic, romantic, and familial – the works!), and all other life experiences and concepts imaginable. While these experiences are my own, hopefully each article published will be able to resonate with others or spark discussion and space for others to begin their own journey of self introspection and openness.
In having that information established, the first necessary topic becomes about nothing other than closure. In the present day, there has been an acute cultural shift in conversations surrounding the receivement of emotions/experiences; while society has begun the necessary work to allow empathy and openness in spaces, the stigma behind expressing negative emotions/experiences still lingers. Most recently, a more recurring social phenomena that perpetuates unhealthy emotional relationships, with both ourselves and others, is the concept of self imposed maturity. While I have no qualms with genuine maturity, the new socially cultivated version seems to come with these unspoken rules – most of which, directly coincide with a sense of unbotherdness, of stoicity, of taking negative experiences in stride.
While this sense of unaffectedness may seem ideal in comparison to facing the difficult emotions that come with life experiences, it does not account for the harm that comes with forcing oneself through pain and the prolongation of hurt as a consequence. Our human experiences are not simply events that occur, instead they are the determining factors in the ways that we handle and behave in our environments; while not optimal, it does society no good to pretend that we can simply push through emotionally heavy situations and experiences without taking the proper time and effort to nourish ourselves through them. Rather than pining for a version of ourselves that is unaffected by our losses, we should invest in techniques and behaviors that will better equip ourselves in handling the aftermath; patience, kindness, and understanding are all skills easily applied to others, yet rarely utilized when attempting to resolve personal hardships.
Before reaching the end of this piece, it is important to disclose two things: one, closure is by no means a concrete concept, and two, closure is overrated. Of course, this does not mean that the idea of closure should be abandoned, rather that we must remove the connotations of linear healing from our expectations. While perhaps not incidentally, the concept of closure subtly reinforces the idea that our experiences could not have lasting effects – and while that may be true for some circumstances, most truly important experiences will shape and impact an individual on some level. As we move forward with this series, readers should understand closure not as an end goal, but something achieved when one is able to discuss and recognize the impacts experiences have had – and most importantly, the ways that one can help themselves cope and process with them.