Package Contents
Application_Install.exe
Closure means a dozen different things depending on who you ask. Revenge. Answers. Forgiveness. Forgetting. I spent most of a year begging people who hurt me to hand it to me, and they couldn’t. Then I severed the last cord, went off the radar, and a bear, a pile of bobcats, a flurry of foxes, a herd of skunks, and then a sunset full of birds on Locust Beach showed me where I’d been looking wrong. Closure was never out there. I heal me.
What helped was acceptance, gratitude, setting down burdens that were never mine, and letting grief move through me. I didn’t do this work alone. I did it with healers, therapists, mentors, peers, friends, and loved ones.
That is the application. The rest is the source code.
Source_Code.txt
The open-source code below is free, for you to analyze, modify, and build your own application with.
> clarity, certainty, or justice: closure_definitions.txt
Look up closure online and you get a dozen answers. Ending a chapter. Moving on. Remembering something forever. Forgetting it completely. Getting ready for every trigger and every cord. Getting answers you never had. Confessing. Forgiving. Or even revenge and getting even.
Here’s the crazy part. People call all of those closure. Some of them would be horrendous at a support group, a wedding, or a funeral. Imagine revenge at a funeral. Closure is a very individual thing.
Pauline Boss, the family therapist who coined “ambiguous loss,” says closure is a myth. She says what people really want is clarity, certainty, or justice.
Closure is not necessary nor achievable.
Pauline Boss, interview with Joshua Coleman
I get her point. I’m using the word anyway, because it’s the word I had. For me, closure is getting to where I can start living again, in a way that’s like the life I had before the loss, or better. I’ve been thinking about it all week. About a lot of old griefs I’m only starting to work through since I went off the radar.
> the thing nobody wants to answer out loud: shadow_question.sh
A blog I read asked a question I couldn’t shake. What specifically am I hoping will change? Not the answer your therapist wants to hear. Not the one you would share with coworkers at the water cooler. The one you wouldn’t want anybody to know. The one you probably don’t even want to know. Shadow stuff.
Then you pick it apart. Is it even possible? Is there anything I can actually do about it? Would it actually make a difference? Is there actually another way to get what I’m after, besides the road I’m on?
Carl Jung wrote, “The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.” That’s what this question does, it brings the darkness to light.
My answer, the one I wouldn’t say out loud: I wanted them to say I was right. I wanted an I’m sorry. I wanted a real goodbye. I wanted it so badly it nearly drove me crazy.
> math isn't always reality: permanent_loss.log
Your dog dies. He’s dead. A lifeless carcass. No movement, no breath, not coming back. Zero percent chance. Awful, and clean. Closure there is simpler, because it’s permanent and real. You can see it with your own eyes.
Now the loss that isn’t permanent. A friend. A partner. A sibling. A coworker. A job. It ended, but that thing is still out there, eating and walking and breathing. Statistically, the chance of reconnecting might be 0.000000001%. My brain acts as if it’s 100%.
So I got stuck in loops. What if I’d done this different. What if I’d said that. Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve, wish I had. What if, what if, what if. Every minute of bargaining was a minute I wasn’t moving toward a life as good as the one before the loss, or better.
Boss has a name for this kind of loss: ambiguous. Unclear, with unanswered questions. That’s why my brain wouldn’t let me mourn. As long as there’s a sliver of a chance, it’s not a loss yet.
> definition of a bitch: acceptance.exe
Acceptance is a bitch. It means getting real. Yes, there’s a statistical chance. But the reality is it’s not happening, and the further out you get, the further away it is.
I did this with bipolar disorder. For years I was in complete denial. I thought it would go away. It wasn’t permanent, it wasn’t set in stone, and that one-in-a-billion chance of being cured meant my brain wouldn’t let me mourn it. I wrote about that in Good Grief:
Denial says it’s not final.
Good_Grief_v1.zip
Same with people. The connection you once had is gone. Even if you reconnected, it wouldn’t be the same thing you lost. My brain wanted the people who hurt me to see my pain, say sorry, and validate it. It wanted so much from people who couldn’t give it.
So you have to choose. Live as if it’s 100% permanent. If you don’t, your head’s in the future or the past, and all the good stuff flies right by while you wait for something that may never happen.
As a veteran friend of mine told me, “If one foot is in the future and one foot is in the past, you are pissing all over the present.”
Truth.
> the text that almost got a screaming call: loud_voicemail_never_sent.log
I was on a walk to Fairhaven. Gorgeous day. Favorite music, totally flowing to Phutureprimitive. Then a text came in from someone who’d been pulling away and testing my boundaries for a while. Same dismissive tone. Same story. Boundary tested again.
I wanted to call and scream at them. Until my voice gave out. Make them hear what they were doing to me. Maybe then they’d finally get it.
But I’d already spent months asking for what I needed. I’d stated my boundaries. I’d asked for respect. More volume and words wasn’t going to change them. It wasn’t going to change anything.
So I let them go. Completely. I’d dodged that loss long enough. I finally faced it.
I didn’t call. I didn’t reply. I put the phone away and kept walking. I told myself I’d revisit it in 24 hours, once the heat wore off, and then pick a path. I was triggered as hell and hurt. I still gave myself that day.
> sleep on it, then hit block: twenty_four_hour_rule.md
Here’s the tool. Sleep on it. When you’re triggered, don’t decide anything. Give it 24 hours and let the heat wear off. If you are still hot, give it another 24-hour cold-shower. A therapist once told me something I have never forgot:
No response is a response.
Good_Grief_v1.zip
Next day, another walk, this time to the pier. And it hit me. Quiet. Gentle. No lightning bolt, just a knowing. My gut said I was done. What had been said was already more than enough. More explaining wouldn’t help. It would just open more doors for hurt.
So I opened my contacts. Picked their card. Hit block. Deleted the text chain. Deleted the contact. Took about thirty seconds. Same lesson I wrote about when I went off the radar:
Loving people unconditionally never meant unlimited access to me.
Off_The_Radar_MP4.zip
The door was already closed. I just locked it. That’s what worked for me. Not every relationship needs a block.
> relief that never wore off: lighter_body.log
Relief. Immediate. And it never left. It’s been months and I still wish I’d done it sooner.
Was it a loss? Yes. There was grief, and I felt it. But the grief I braced for was way smaller than what staying in contact was doing to me. My nervous system was fried and I was suffering on repeat. I wrote this later, and it fits:
Reality is that grief is the little things.
Sharp_As_A_Thumbnail_Scratch_v1.zip
My body knew before my head did. Lighter. Less tense. Less anxious. Quiet. For the first time in a long time, when I thought of this person, it was actually peaceful.
Good grief is the kind you finally let yourself feel.
Good_Grief_v1.zip
> a bear in the headlights: not_a_squatch.log
I was halfway up the mountain, driving to shoot astrophotography. First late night out with the camera since my California road trip in June. First time up the mountain since I went off the radar.
Then a bear ran out in front of my car.
I hadn’t seen a bear in years. I pulled over and stopped. My whole body lit up. I was giggling like a little kid, saying it over and over: “A bear! A bear! A bear!”
Pure excitement. Zero fear.
That whole day I’d felt free. At peace. I kept realizing over and over that severing and going off the radar was the best thing I’d ever chosen to reduce my suffering. Not one of the best. The best. The line I wrote when I went off the radar was playing in my head:
Everyone gets to choose their path in life. I’m choosing less suffering myself.
Off_The_Radar_MP4.zip
> night drives and a wildlife streak: headlights_on.log
The bear was just the start. I kept going out, scouting new locations. Night drives through the forest and up in the mountains, chasing the darker skies for astrophotography.
Another night, a second bear on 542. One evening, 5 bobcats between Sudden Valley and Acme. Another evening, 5 foxes as I drove out through the county. Another, 6 skunks before I even got to Nugents Corner. I have never experienced anything like this with animals in my life. Not once.
The bobcats are where it flipped. I have never seen a bobcat in the wild. Ever. That night I saw five. All running across the road in front of me, in a span of a few hours. That’s when “huh, cool” turned into “this isn’t random.”
And it didn’t start in my nights of exploration. Months before, crows had been watching me on my walks. Right before that, dozens of rabbits crossed my path again and again. I noticed. I just didn’t know what I was noticing yet. The crows and rabbit events started suddenly, lasted a few weeks, then stopped abruptly. It also didn’t feel random.
> a Saturday on Locust Beach, not a soul: solitude_bliss.log
I’d been out there all afternoon. On a Saturday. Didn’t see one person. Two miles down Locust Beach, hunting agates, and I was loving every minute of it. A year ago that would have scared the hell out of me. Being alone, I mean. I wrote about that fear in Legacy_Fear:
Solitude is not the enemy. Solitude is where you actually meet yourself.
Legacy_Fear_v1.zip
Standing there, I got to live it. That quiet is something I built this year. Nobody handed it to me. I felt good. Powerful. In control of my life and my emotions, instead of the other way around like it was in my past.
Almost 300 days sober. Felt like yesterday it was 200. At 200 I celebrated the only way I know how: I danced to Janet Jackson’s Escapade. No choreography. No plan. Zero fucks given. Check the video if you want proof. Alan Watts wrote in The Wisdom of Insecurity that the only way to make sense of change is to “plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” I took that literally.
I wrote that whole post about the hardest stretch of my life, and one line from it was still true on that beach:
Sobriety wasn’t the reward at the end of the hard part. It was the floor I built the hard part on top of.
200_Days_Of_Clarity_And_Hell_MP4.zip
Then there’s severing and going off the radar. Way easier than I expected. Way better, too. The line I wrote when I cut the cord turned out to be the whole thing:
It costs nothing to choose less suffering for yourself, and will cost you everything if you don’t.
Severed_v1.zip
Months of killing patterns and choosing less suffering, and it all stood there with me on Locust Beach. The first line of my manifesto says it best: I am leading my life only from a place of unconditional love and acceptance. When I went off the radar, the caption I wrote was: I’m off the radar, and I am still love. No fear. Just me and the agates.
> over a hundred birds at sunset: high_tide.log
I was at the far end of the beach. Hours out there. Two miles down from the trailhead. Sunset. Tide was high, and I knew I neaded to start heading back because it was getting dark and cold.
Then the birds showed up. Out of nowhere. Over a hundred. Diving into the water, hunting, over and over. Above me. In front of me. Sometimes silhouetted against the sunset, depending which way I turned.
My chest and head filled with tranquility and peace. A gentle knowing. Every decision I’d made this year, and the biggest ones, severing and going off the radar, were exactly what I needed. For me. And for the entire universe around me.
All year I’d been charging storms instead of running from them. That’s the whole bison idea:
Bison don’t run from storms. They charge straight into them. Head down. Horns forward.
Be_A_Bison_v1.zip
And the tide was coming in, which felt about right. I’d learned this one in Good Grief:
You can’t fight the tide. It comes and goes whether you like it or not.
Good_Grief_v1.zip
The bear made me giggle. This was the opposite. Quiet. Still. Like something had finally clicked into place. I thought about my scars, and the line I wrote about them:
A scar doesn’t erase what was there before it. It just marks where the wound used to be.
Grieving_Scars_v1.zip
Standing on that sand, I was really alive. The same cellular realization I had in a crowd of ten thousand people months ago. Only this time it was quiet, and nobody else was there.
> what the birds were telling me: sunset_signs.txt
When I got home I looked up what these birds mean. One summary called them symbols of “protection, resourcefulness, teamwork, and finding safety after a period of intense trial.” Yeah. That tracks.
Birds that dive don’t hover on the surface. They go under for what they need, again and again, and come back up. That’s what this year was. And a hundred of them working the same water together? That’s teamwork. A flock. After a year of thinking I had to do everything alone, I stood on a beach and watched a hundred of them do it side by side. It felt like a hundred diving guardians, celebrating my solitude.
The old teachings say sunset is the end of a chapter. A threshold. I was at the far end of the beach, at sunset, with the tide coming in. A chapter closing, right in front of me. And I’d been hunting agates all day. Agates are stones shaped under pressure over a long time. I’d been out there looking down at the sand for something that was already forming in me.
Five bobcats. Five foxes. Five is the number of change. I didn’t know that until I looked it up. I’m not saying the universe counted for me. I’m saying my brain noticed a pattern and the old wisdom gave it words. I don’t need validation from anyone’s past. I have the ocean, the sky, and a hundred birds diving at sunset.
> reading the vibes, honestly: animal_signs.txt
Did the animals show up on purpose? Hell if I know. Maybe it’s coincidence. I can’t prove it either way. But I’ve done plenty of night drives, and I have never seen this many animals like this before. This was a big departure from normal. It was different. Period.
It started months back. Crows kept watching me on my walks. Rabbits crossed my path by the dozens. Then came the bears, the bobcats, the foxes, the skunks. Then the birds on Locust Beach at sunset.
I looked up what the old teachings say about each one. Rabbits are alertness, being ready to move. Crows see what’s hidden. Foxes are cleverness, skunks are boundaries, bobcats are quiet, bears are healing in hibernation.
My brain saw a pattern, and the teachings gave me a metaphor for where I was stuck and why. I’ve learned this before:
Nobody tells you that wisdom isn’t something you accumulate alone.
Wisdom_Mirrored_Back_v1.zip
Something clicked. I’d been on a safari for a year, hunting for validation from the people who hurt me. Wrong jungle. The validation was in me the whole time. I just needed a metaphor to see it.
> I heal me: closure_inside_job.cfg
Here’s what I know now. Closure isn’t something somebody hands you. Not an apology. Not an answer. Not a goodbye. I wanted all three for most of a year, and I kept knocking on doors that were never going to open.
Closure is inside. Healing is inside. That’s the theme of my whole recovery. I heal me. Nobody else can do it for me, and nobody has to sign off on it. Not a therapist, not my besties, not the people who hurt me. I wrote about where the void really comes from:
The void was never actually about the outside world. It was always about the love you lost for yourself somewhere along the way.
Severed_v1.zip
Carl Jung wrote in Aion that “when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.” That was me. I was begging the outside world for an inside job. The animals didn’t hand me closure. They pointed at where I’d been looking wrong.
That’s why the beach landed the way it did. The old teachings gave me a metaphor, and my brain saw a pattern. But the acknowledgment I’d been begging for wasn’t coming from a bear, a bird, or anyone’s apology. I’d been trying to get it from outside for so long that I forgot I could give it to myself. I could see my own hurt. Hear my own grief. Validate my own feelings. So I did.
Acceptance is coming to terms with things so I suffer less and find more joy. I put it like this in Good Grief:
That’s self-love. That’s love.
Good_Grief_v1.zip
So I heal me. The people who hurt me get to heal themselves, on their own timeline, in their own way, if they even choose to. That’s not my job anymore. This one is.
> what I'm setting down: burdens_released.log
Here’s what I was carrying that I don’t have to carry anymore.
First, guilt and remorse. I made decisions in my life that hurt people. I own that. I can’t repair some of it directly, because the door to those people is closed. Setting the guilt down doesn’t mean tossing it aside. I wrote the rule on my own site:
When I do something that hurts someone, I own it immediately, and I’m accountable for it by never repeating it.
Sharp_As_A_Thumbnail_Scratch_v1.zip
That’s my living amends. I keep owning it by not repeating it. I can’t carry it like a weight on my chest anymore. I can carry it like a lesson.
Second, other people’s judgments. Over the years, people decided things about me. Some of those judgments landed at times when I was making the right decisions. I carried them anyway, quietly, for a long time. It took most of a year to believe this:
Your labels were never mine to carry.
200_Days_Of_Clarity_And_Hell_MP4.zip
Third, a story I believed. For years I took in gaslighting and carried it like fact. I believed things about myself that weren’t true. It took until August 27th, combined with a lot of therapy, to see it. I wrote about it in I_Am_Getting_Married, and the line that matters most from that post is:
I am not wrong about this. I know that now. But I didn’t always.
I_Am_Getting_Married_v1.zip
Knowing something and feeling it in your body are two different jobs. I wrote that, too:
There is a difference between knowing you were not the villain and actually believing it.
I_Am_Getting_Married_v1.zip
I wrote about labels and what shame does to you. Setting all three down didn’t make me forget what happened. It just meant they stopped getting in the way of the life I’m building.
> what I have right now: gratitude_inventory.csv
Gratitude doesn’t mean thanking the butterflies. It means counting what’s actually here. So here’s my count, today.
One. Almost three years of stability with bipolar disorder. No mania. No psychosis. No paranoia. No delusions. I wrote it in Good Grief:
Almost three years later: no major hospitalization. No mania. Nothing psychotic, delusional, or paranoid.
Good_Grief_v1.zip
Two. The best physical health I’ve ever had. My goal was walking 40 miles a week, or 2,084 for the year. I hit it two days ago, 3.9 million steps reached by October 24th, with almost nine weeks to spare. That’s what walking in the sun looks like when you keep at it.
Three. I’m chemically sober and clear headed for the first time in my life, allowing me to pursue and enjoy the benefits of an emotionally sober life on top of it.
Four. The people. The best people, and not once have they made me feel unsafe. They love me unconditionally and accept me as I am. Hurt is not a love language with them. I couldn’t have said that a few years ago. I also couldn’t have done this alone:
I did not white knuckle two hundred days alone.
200_Days_Of_Clarity_And_Hell_MP4.zip
Gratitude doesn’t erase the loss. It changes where the weight sits. I’m not trying to get my old life back. I’m trying to live this one.
> the weight on your shoulders: not_yours_to_carry.log
So here’s the question I’m leaving you with. What are you carrying that isn’t yours to carry anymore?
It could be trauma. Bad memories. Anger. Confusion. Denial. A need for revenge. A need for closure, whatever closure means for you. Ask yourself why you’re carrying it. Ask whether you even have to. I think you’ll find a lot of it was never yours.
The quickest way I found to set it down is gratitude. Not the butterfly version. The kind where you count what you actually have, and the hole you’ve been staring at gets smaller. I put it this way in Good Grief:
Good grief is the kind you finally let yourself feel.
Good_Grief_v1.zip
Now the part that sounds backwards. There’s an old saying: if it’s love, it’ll come back. If it’s meant to be, it will be. Maybe. Some of your losses aren’t permanent. Someone might still be out there, and there might be a sliver of a chance. But if you’re living in your burdens, stuck in what-ifs, with your head in the past or the future, there’s no room for anything to come back to. Living in gratitude, in the present, and not carrying that weight is the only way anything could ever find its way to you. Letting go and leaving the door open aren’t opposites. That’s for you, if your doors are still open.
Mine aren’t. I welded mine shut, and they stay that way. Those cords are permanently cut, and I wrote down why:
Holding on costs more than letting go.
Severed_v1.zip
I’m not waiting at a door. I wish them peace and less suffering, from a distance. I release and let go. I found my peace on my favorite beach, with gratitude for what I actually have.
Closure was never out there.
Closure was within me the whole time.
Closure is also within you.
I am 2KVYOT3. I am love. And today, I am healing me.
