Ghosts, Boundaries, and Release
(Disclaimer: long, philosophical, personal, angsty post ahead. Read on if you like, but you've been warned.)
So, I'm reading a book right now that isn't work-related (gasp!). The book is I'll See You Tomorrow, written by Heather Thompson Day and Seth Day. It's a book about relationships. It's not necessarily the first book I'd pick up to read for pleasure, but I follow the Days on Twitter (particularly Dr. Heather), and they write so amazingly well that I bought the book just on that basis. I'm only halfway through the book right now, so I can't really review it yet ... but so far, it's good.
Yesterday, in a section talking about saying "no" to people, I read the following sentence (written by Dr. Heather):
If you communicate a boundary in a relationship, and someone makes a choice to disrespect it, then you are simply respecting their choice to end the relationship.
That sentence has me spinning ... though perhaps not in the way you might expect.
I am lonely. (I was about to say "I struggle with loneliness", but that's too passive a statement.) I really enjoy the company of people, and I need relationships. But for a variety of reasons, those relationships --- in particular, the deep, meaningful, talking over pizza at 2am kinds of relationships --- haven't happened for me lately, no matter how hard I try. (There are reasons, but that's a whole other discussion.)
Most of the time, when I manage to start building a friendship that might become something deeper, something eventually happens to end the friendship. Sometimes, it's something as innocent as a job change. Sometimes, it's something much more dramatic. (Like many others, I've lost friends over the last five years due to our screwed-up culture in the US.)
But sometimes --- and this is where my thoughts have turned lately --- it's because I've been ghosted by these close friends.
Google's dictionary defines "ghosting" as "the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication." In short: one day they're in your life, and the next day they're not. They don't call you back, they don't respond to your emails or texts ... they're just gone.
And because they've withdrawn from all communication, you don't always know why they've chosen to go silent. Okay, sure, sometimes you can guess. But a guess isn't the same as knowing for sure. And, either way, ghosting doesn't allow for closure.
I can name at least three close friends who've ghosted me over the last five years. It hurts for a lot of reasons. For some of them, I can guess the reasons; for others, I honestly don't understand at all why they've left. Being self-introspective, I try to see if I've missed cues or violated some taboo that merited such a response. But, most of the time, I don't see it. I'm left to piecing together gossip I've heard from other people with my own limited observations.
Mostly, it hurts because I don't have many friends (did I mention that I'm lonely?), and the loss of even one friend affects me greatly.
One of my "secret prayers" (y'know, the ones you won't share in public) is that I'd be able to break that silence with my ghosts. At this point, I'm not even looking for reconciliation; I've largely accepted that reconciliation isn't possible. I'd settle for getting closure: understanding why the break happened, and being able to say "thank you and Godspeed" to them as our paths diverge.
So I pray boldly for closure. And, largely, that closure has been denied to me. I grow weary of praying for that which doesn't seem to be coming, with all the questions that arise from unfulfilled prayers.
So, back to Heather Thompson Day:
If you communicate a boundary in a relationship, and someone makes a choice to disrespect it, then you are simply respecting their choice to end the relationship.
In the context of the chapter, this sentence is talking about being the one who cuts off contact with others (the "ghoster"). Boundaries are important, and ghosting may be the appropriate response to boundary violations.
But what about from the other side? How does the one being ghosted respond?
Respect their choice to end the relationship.
What if my longing for closure is longing for something that they can't give to me? What if getting closure would mean harming them?
What if choosing to give up my dream of closure is actually a way to honor the friendship we once had? What if this seemingly passive act of giving up is, in fact, an active choice to honor them? What if I need to respect their choice to ghost me, no matter how painful it is?
I don't know that I'm there yet. But maybe this is the beginning of something in me. (Or, more accurately, the beginning of the end of something.)