Reframing Closure

Entering the New Year

I closed out 2024 unplugged. With much needed intentional rest. Rising from my resting cocoon, I began to wonder about closure.

Year’s end is a popular time for reflecting on what was and for considering what might be. For letting go and embracing. For forgetting and setting new resolutions. For closing and opening.

I’m very open about my participation in therapy. There is no shame and in fact, great wisdom in knowing you need someone to talk with. Years ago, I spent several sessions talking with my therapist about closure. Initially the question was, how to find it. It shifted to whether or not closure was real. Have I spent all this time and energy seeking something that isn’t even there?

What is it about closure that draws us? That pulls us to focus on it? To pursue it with fierce intensity? Closure gets thrown round like a cure all, a band aid, a universal endeavor following tests and trials or the end of a calendar year.

One afternoon, I sat on my therapist’s couch, tearfully recounting a horrible moment, saying, I just want closure.

After some silence, they asked, what if we reframe this? What is it that’s open for you?

I hadn’t thought of that before. Yes, of course, wanting closure implies that there’s an opening.

My heart. That was the opening. What I wanted so desperately was for the past to stop flowing in. I wanted those old things to be cut off, shut out, closed.

My therapist then offered an invitation. It sounded something like…

Your mind is an amazing thesaurus. Flip through the pages, find another word for closure. Write a new definition.

For days, weeks, months I was flipping and turning pages. Writing poems and journaling and doodling and doing all I knew to find that word and define it.

And like a star, leading travelers to a far way birth in an unknown land, it appeared—Bright, Brilliant, Beautiful—as I walked on a beach near midnight one January.

What I was calling closure was actually reframing. I wasn’t seeking to close things off, but rather to redesign the opening through which they come to me. I wasn’t closing a door, but reimagining and repurposing the entry.

Months ago, I renovated my creative office. Emptying out a small room in the basement. Pulling up the carpet. Painting the walls. Adding some new light. A room solely dedicated to creativity. It’s been perfect for writing and reading and planning. And I soon realized I also wanted a space to be a little messier. Somewhere to explore painting and putting words on bigger canvases. So, just outside the office in a less finished part of the basement I transformed a well-lit corner into a studio. In this process, I removed some old accordion doors that were broken, which created a large opening. Some days, I look at it and want to close it back off. Something is missing. It’s just not right.

Other days, I come downstairs to create and admire the opening like a rare jewel on display in a palace. Or a piece of art freshly hung at a gallery. Or a new pair of shoes with florescent laces on a shelf. Captivating. Motivating. Stirring.

Creativity is a path that leads to closure, to an understating of closure that is more of an opening. A reframing of the moments and encounters that have shaped us.

It’s been a long journey coming to realize that I cannot undo anything that I have done or that I have known. That I cannot pray away who I am or what I know. But what I can do is reframe it. The poems and stories and sermons and reflections I write are reframes. My creative life is largely about reshaping the experiences that tried to take the life from me, that left me lost, scared, and uncertain. And I share my words and my work now that you, that others, might find hope or inspiration for your own reframing.

Reframing isn’t forgetting. Or denying. Or disparaging. Or dismissing. Or romanticizing what we’ve been through. It isn’t sweeping things under the rug or attributing them to some divine will or plan.

Reframing is not synonymous with rebuilding. It is making beauty and meaning from the life we hold in our hands. No blue prints, only heart prints of our own design. No deadline or timeline or punch lists to complete.

Reframing is a lesson on being gentle with ourselves in a world of endless, often dangerous construction zones and difficult to interpret warning signs.

Reframing is honest and vulnerable. Messy. Raw. It reveals the fullness of who we are. It is staring into the eyes our pain and trauma and disappointments and whispering, I see you. I’m sorry. We survived. Let’s go forward together.

Reframing can also be fun. A chance to experiment. Vision. Dream. Explore. Take risks. Try things on or out. Make “happy little accidents.”

Reframing is personal and collective.

It is spiritual.
Emotional.
Mental.
Physical.
Political.

Reframing is a journey.
Reframing is another way to consider closure.
Reframing is creative.
Reframing is making the opening and letting healing enter one breath at time.
Reframing is not a one-time project or a 12-month goal that fits into a fancy colorful planner.
Reframing cannot be tracked in an app.

It is not a resolution.
It is a life-long invitation.

How will we respond?

Water-fully yours,
Rebecca & 10 Camels

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