Grieving the Life You Thought You'd Have

There is a kind of grief we don't talk about very often.

Grief for Yourself

It isn't necessarily grief because someone died. Sometimes, it's grief for yourself—for a version of you that you thought you would become, a life you assumed you would have, or a future that quietly stopped being possible somewhere along the way.

Sometimes we reach a certain age or stage of life, look around, and think:

Wait... how did I get here?

I have experienced this myself around motherhood. There was a point when I realized I had suddenly reached the age where having a baby was considered "geriatric." (And yes, I know women are having healthy babies later and later. But that word still hits a little hard!)

I grieved that realization. Then I found myself in a relationship with a man who felt right for me, but who didn't want a child. There was grief in that, too. Eventually, I reached another realization: having my own biological children probably isn't part of my future.

And strangely enough, each realization required its own kind of grieving.

I had to grieve the picture I once had in my head. I had to acknowledge the reality of my age and where I am in life. And then I had to allow myself to grieve the part of me that really did want a child—while also acknowledging another very real part of me that loves my life, my independence, my space, and the freedom I have to pour myself into my business and the things that matter to me.

Both can be true.

I can feel sadness for the life I didn't live and gratitude for the life I do have.

I was also fortunate enough to have an important role in the lives of children who are now adults, so I didn't entirely miss out on the beautiful, exhausting, complicated experience of helping raise children. My story has its own privileges and its own losses.

And everyone's story is different.

There are women who desperately wanted children and couldn't have them. Women who never wanted children and became mothers anyway. Women who imagined being married by 30 and weren't. Women who married the person they thought they'd grow old with and ended up starting over. Women who pictured a completely different career. Women who thought their parents would still be here. Women who imagined having close relationships with their adult children or siblings and don't. Women whose bodies, finances, friendships, homes, or lives simply don't look the way they expected them to.

There are so many ways we can find ourselves living a different version of life than the one we rehearsed in our heads.

And sometimes we try to rush ourselves straight to acceptance.

"Everything happens for a reason."
"Look at everything you DO have."
"Maybe it worked out for the best."
"Just be grateful."

Maybe some of those things are true. But gratitude doesn't require us to pretend there was never a loss.

Sometimes before we can genuinely embrace what is next, we have to acknowledge what isn't coming with us.

What are you allowed to grieve?

You are allowed to grieve an opportunity you missed.

You are allowed to grieve the person you thought you would become.

You are allowed to grieve a relationship that didn't become what you hoped it would.

You are allowed to grieve motherhood—or the version of motherhood you thought you would experience.

You are allowed to grieve a career, a friendship, a dream, a home, a family dynamic, your younger body, or simply a season of your life that is over.

And you don't have to decide that your current life is bad in order to admit that you're sad about something you didn't get.

Grieving what wasn't doesn't mean you don't appreciate what is.

I think that's an important distinction.

The goal isn't to sit indefinitely in everything that didn't happen. It's to give ourselves enough space to acknowledge it honestly so that we don't have to keep carrying it quietly.

Ask yourself:

What version of my life am I still comparing my current life to?

Maybe there is something there that needs to be acknowledged.

Name what you wanted. Let yourself be disappointed. Be angry if you're angry. Cry if you need to cry. Write about it. Talk to someone you trust. Give yourself permission to admit, "I really wanted that, and it hurts that it didn't happen."

And then, when you're ready, begin asking a different question:

If that isn't my path anymore, what might I want from the life that is actually in front of me?

Not what you should want. Not what makes the loss sound worthwhile. Not a forced silver lining.

What do you want now?

There are pieces of my life today that I probably couldn't have fully imagined years ago. There are freedoms I value, work I care deeply about, relationships that matter to me, and parts of myself I might not have discovered if my life had followed the exact path I once pictured.

That doesn't erase what I had to let go of.

It simply means the story kept going.

And maybe that is one of the hardest—and most beautiful—parts of getting older. We realize that life isn't one straight path toward the future we imagined when we were younger. Sometimes the path changes.

Sometimes we choose the change. Sometimes it is chosen for us.

We grieve.

We adjust.

And eventually, we begin to make a home in the life that is here.

You don't have to stop loving the life you imagined in order to start loving the life you're living.

Suggested Practice:

There is so much in life to be grateful for. Grieve, because when we force those ugly feelings down, they remain in us causing darkness. So grieve, then write down three things you love about life right now. Focusing on the positives will help you see more positives. Keep a gratitude journal as a way to help retrain your brain to seeing the joys in this life.