closures

i am not sure about you, but for me, i do make the effort to revisit my past and close issues. issues that i could have contributed and that could, possibly linger on in a person's life. while not entirely so, these issues are largely relationship related. the following are some stories about how i close issues...

• it was related to my very demanding boss in 1999. i was part of a team organising an asia pacific event and perhaps it was the pressure, and my boss, was was a superbly demanding person, kept micromanaging and would shout and scream at me whenever anything small thing that did not seemed right to him happened. it went to a point where i could not take it anymore and i burst out at him publicly. i stormed out of the room during the event itself and did not go back to work for a while. reflecting, both of us allowed the event to get to us and there were lessons to be learned for both of us. and for me, bursting at him and storming out publicly was something that continued to haunt me for a long time. and it was until i finally apologised to him after more than a decade that i finally let it go. and as for him, he had forgotten about the incident (at least that was what he said). 

• the second story is related to managing crushes. colin was a person whom i got to know at the east coast parkway after chancing on him many many times back in 1996-97. he was confused about his sexuality. i had just come out and took the chance to proposition to him one day when it rained heavily. we were the only runners at the otherwise isolated jogging track. he went on to have a bad crush on me but for me, i was myself caught in a difficult situation where i was rejected by chong (someone whom i had a crush). chong gave me the cold treatment and i did the same to colin. i hurt him very badly. i didn't feel good about it and eventually reconnected with him when things cooled down. with a cool head, we both acknowledged that perhaps we were not ready for anything more serious at that time. we had just come out, at i was caught in a situation where i had a crush on another person, and he had a crush on me... that was so long ago. 

• the third story was amos. that was in 1999. similarly, i was crazy about him but he was not ready for a relationship. i got hurt badly as a result and eventually avoided him for a long while. years to be exact. chanced upon him a couple of times but i refused to talk to him when he came up to talk to me. i eventually decided to make peace with myself and connected with him again 2 (i think) years back. we are good friends now.

• and the last story is about adam... i'll blog separately in my next post. felt it needed a blog by itself. 

so back to my starting point. to die in peace is to live a life fully and most importantly, with no issues left unclosed. i try to do my closures all the time, even if it is decades later. i feel that being able to reconcile with oneself, and the people around us is important. of cos, importantly, as we give ourselves the closure and we try to seek closure, i also recognise that the other party also need to have the want to close it. but of cos, we cannot force them to do so. ultimately, as long as we tried, that, would be the most important step to take.