[Lacking] Closure

I'm used to finding myself lost in thought most of the time. Lately though it seems like most of what I ever think of is errands, tasks, and to-do lists of errands and tasks. I usually end up forgetting anything else that comes to mind, unless I write them down like this.

Closure. The word came up in conversation today in a different context, but it characterizes what's been bothering me since May ended. I don't feel like I had any closure on anything going on then, aside from the need to get away from people. Cause once I found people again, it was too late for there to be any of it. People move on.

When the things you expect, or hope, or pray for don't come to fruition in time... A friend back in May wondered why I seemed less happy in general from previous years. It progressed through phases. From optimism to depression, to anger, and then to disillusionment. By the end there was apathy. Not totally... I still cared enough to be bothered. I just didn't care enough to do anything about it anymore... which in effect isn't really much different from not caring at all.

And to be honest, I hate the fact that it still bothers me. I could still find myself paralyzed from the thought of it, months later, trapped in a car in the middle of traffic in Indonesia, even when nothing of the days or moments before would even suggest of it. Again in the middle of conversation with a family that was being a little too hospitable. Again in the midst of the lull while driving up north. These moments just happen out of nowhere.

"It" is multiple things. It is disappointment at what could've been, at what actually happened, at my own passiveness in the face of something that just seemed inexplicable and out of my own control. It is multiple events, some related, some unrelated, spanning the course of four years and multiple overlapping circles of people and communities. It consists largely of things that "don't concern me," as far as the signs would tell. I know that. I don't want to be concerned. But it still comes up anyway, in conversation as an afterthought. A nice story to tell to those who weren't there. and to reminisce with those who were, regardless of whether or not I fully know what's being said in front of me.

I wonder if I'd find closure if I actually knew what happened. To be able to fill in those holes in my memory, the lack of information that leads me to misjudge people and hold bitter feelings against them, when they probably don't deserve any of it for all I know. Is it even really about that? Was I even sincerely praying for them? Did I even actually pray?

It is all too easy to turn this into something about me, when in actuality there was a lot more going on personally in the lives of these people, that I have no right to know about. Perhaps I am bitter because I wasn't allowed to know. I shouldn't have any reason to know. But I can see the apparent aftereffects of it all, and that is enough to make me want to know. And then it turns into an issue of not being close enough with the people in question. And then it's an issue of why we weren't closer. And then it becomes why aren't I closer with more people. And so the thought progression goes.

Do I want to be closer to people because I need people to be close to? Or am I really affected by what happens to the people I consider my friends, even if I'm not that close to them? These questions keep coming up again and again, and I can't shake them off. I tend to go with the assumption that I'm just being selfish here, and that I should stop wondering cause it'd be better for everyone else, and for my own mind's sake. But evidently I can't stop myself from mulling over this sometimes, when I least expect it.

For those of you who I find it difficult to talk to now after all of this, I really miss talking to you. Even though it might not have seemed like we talked much at all. I'm guessing my memory's eschewed that much of it... and so I feel hesitant to say much more. I could be going off of something that wasn't there for all I know. But I don't presume most of you read this blog anyway, so what does it matter.

It is difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel when you don't know if the people you value will get to see it with you.