In respect of time...

There's this annoying little habit that people have of expecting life to deliver itself in nice, neat packages tied up tight with sparkly bows. Or maybe that's just me. I (and I'm really hoping I'm not actually alone in this) have this disgustingly compulsive need for closure. I have to have it. In my experience, it's the only thing that has made moving on possible. Or so I was inclined to believe.

The first time I truly got my heart broken, I yearned for closure. I obsessed over it. I was sure that if I were just able to ask a few last questions and get a few simple answers that it would fix everything and I would finally be okay. I didn't get to ask those questions. I didn't get those answers. At least, not for a while. But by the time I received those long overdue answers, I had been around in circles through every corner of my mind and had come up with every possible conclusion to qualm my paranoia and anxiety.

I didn't realize it then. I can be terribly dense sometimes. It wasn't until just recently that I realized that those answers, even if I had received them when I thought I needed them, wouldn't have fixed me. Being left in the dark tortured me, without a doubt. I tore myself apart trying to figure it all out. But it wouldn't have mattered if I got the answers that I so longed for. It wouldn't have fixed me. It might have helped to speed up the healing process, but it would not in itself have healed me.

I realize that now. I see that it's not answers, it's not actions or words that reconfigure a broken heart. It's Time. Time washes over us. It makes us new and we never even see it coming. We go through the steps to recovery: we admit our circumstances, feel our pain, embrace the change, and accept our new reality. And then we move forward. Moving on doesn't always follow immediately, but it's just around the corner. We learn to cope. We learn lessons. We learn to endure. That's what Time does. Time is a healer, a teacher, a strength provider.

Time has been good to me. I may not always see its reasoning or agree with it, but this concept of time happens when it's supposed to. Everything has a set time to occur. We just have to be willing to be patient and go along for the ride. Eventually, things will begin to make sense and fall into place if you just take a moment to let Time pass and work its strange magic.

Patience, Time, and I have not always been the best of friends, but in the end we always settle into a mutual respect somehow. I have learned more in the times that I have been patient and waited on my answers, whatever form they eventually presented themselves in, than from rushing through the rough patches and trying to pry the answers out of thin air.

So if you're trying to move on, just wait on Time. You may not get the answers you desire, but you will get the time that you need. Be appreciative of that time. It's the greatest remedy we have. Closure will come if you let it. And when it does, it will arrive in the most unexpected little wrapped up box you could have possibly imagined. And it will be everything you never knew you needed.

"In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it." -Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet In Heaven