C'est fini

People talk a lot about closure: how to get it, why it's important, the impossibility of moving on without it. I've never really understood it, the need for something external to give you internal peace, the desire to bookend a relationship, a friendship, a job. It's rare that I have longed for one last conversation, one last letter, one last meeting. For better or for worse, I've always had an uncanny ability to simply not think about things that are bothering me. At this point all of you who have been/are in therapy are rolling your eyes, and I get why. No, it might not be the healthiest approach, but the truth is that if you don't think about something for long enough, it often ceases to be important to you. For me, at least. Out of sight, out of mind, or something like that. And it helps that I've led a pretty charmed life, with very few catastrophic events marring my view of kittens and rainbows and ice cream cones.

Tuesday morning at family court in downtown Houston I got some of the most definitive closure there is (if you're not in an Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton kind of situation, that is). I stood alone in a hallway full of tear-stained faces, sullen children, and couples not speaking to each other. I sat in court and watched as a boy who hadn't had any contact with his mother for the last 9 years was adopted by his stepmother into what was obviously a warm loving family. I waited patiently for my turn. I stood up in front of a judge and read aloud from a piece of paper provided by the court. No simple "I do" or "I will" here; I had to say things like "The marriage has become insupportable because of discord and conflict," and "There is no hope of reconciliation." A simple signature on a piece of paper, and I was done.

And then I walked out of the building, got in my car, and drove home. And I could feel it. Through the frustration and sadness and disappointment, it was there. I was still sorting through my feelings. I was still mourning the loss of the man and the marriage. But there was something else there, something new.

Closure.

Closure is a freedom. It's an ending, of a relationship, of a marriage, of the life I thought I would have, but it's more than that. It's a beginning, too. It's an opening of possibilities. It's an endless horizon. It's a deceptive cadence.

And I think I finally get it.