There’s the sadness that no one ever prepares you for. Not disaster, not heartbreak. Not loss. The muted pain of glancing at the reflection in the mirror and coming to the conclusion that you’re not the person you imagined you’d grow up to be. It isn’t just a one-time pain. It creeps in quietly through the lack of a once-expected career path, the quiet that follows a what-could-have-been, or an unexpectedly harsh reminder of how vividly you envisioned your life would be. It’s certainly not as annoying or loud as it could be. It doesn’t shatter you wide open. That’s the problem—it just hangs around. This is the sorrow of seeing yourself never turn into the person you imagined you’d become.
The Ghost of the Person You Imagined
We all have different versions living in our hearts. Versions created out of the clay of childhood dreams, hopes, parental demand, reading habits, cultural aesthetics, or that one moment of encouragement that made us think we could grow into something greater. Remember when you imagined yourself arriving—whenever and whatever “there” was?
Perhaps you dreamed of becoming an artist. An environmental visionary and someone deeply famous. A writer. The person you don’t notice, but who gets the job done like nobody’s business. Someone different. Perhaps you assumed you would be courageous. Or at least in love with the right person. Or realizing you can no longer afford to go home to the city where you might otherwise have moved. That other version of you is out there, somewhere—inviolable by fear, disappointment, or setbacks. Here you are. Not so fast. What’s different today from back then? It hurts. It matters to you not only what you failed to be, but all that you could have been, should have been, and would have been. It’s not just about what you did and learned on the journey itself in, it’s about who you thought you were getting on that journey in.
Measuring a Life in Should-Haves
The grief sometimes comes out in the form of anxiety. You scroll legitimately expecting to see what “doing it right” looks like. You doubt every decision—even the big ones. You measure the years in scars. You transcendently mourn time lost—not in lethargy, but in the tyranny of existence. Then comes the guilt trip. You tell yourself—you just have to suck it up—after all, people have it much worse than you. Gratitude doesn’t erase the impact of grief. Grieving the departed self doesn’t imply that you’re against your current self. That’s all it takes—that you are willing to remember. Never forget the girl who wasn’t afraid to dream big and change the world.
The man-child who figured he’d be tougher by now. As for the artist who used to feel on top of the world with just a pen, a dream, a song in their mind. It’s forgivable to miss them. It’s fine to pretend with them for a bit, to rejoice in what’s emerged from our guiding co-creations.
The Grief No One Talks About
This type of grief is often difficult to give voice to, as it can lack clear boundaries. There’s no memorial service for who you failed to turn into. No sorrow cards for the iterations of you that failed. It’s a personal loss. A particularly loud secret one. Transform your internal. It's real. You don’t realize it but you hold it in your pause of indecision. In the failures, you accept them as impossible. In the very spaces that you fled to, since they only show you a glimpse of who you used to want to be. You know it when you hear it in others as well – the friend who quit pursuing acting, the sister who never left home, the person with the voice of someone who once aspired. Still, we march on—not haunted by failure but by memory. Not by lack, but by variety.
You’re Still Becoming
Here’s the harsh reality that no one wants to admit to you: The joy of meeting the person you couldn’t imagine before is permitted to be there. So is loss. And so is hope for a better future together.
Your dream version of you might have had a vision, but it lacked the context. What they didn’t realize was how difficult it truly is to wake up and do it all over again on days when your brain is full of lead. They could not foresee the detours that would turn into their main arteries. They didn’t realize how hard you’d learn to love. Or to thrive. Or make it less strict. You have not become the person you imagined yourself to be. Perhaps that person was just too little for the person you were supposed to become. Perhaps they were not mistaken—but they were incomplete. Saved as a favorite movie in your. In your questioning, in your pacing, in your unrecognized expansion. In your company and faith forward movement often occurs without our realization. You have not arrived. You are still becoming.
And that counts for something.
Final Thoughts
You don’t need to give up on that version. You can still take it with you—like a favorite tune or a dogeared children’s novel. Something that influenced you. For many, it was something that mattered. Perhaps, the true becoming occurs in the wake of that grief. Not when you hit the jackpot, but when you permit yourself to exist outside the plan. When you cease to hold your value up to an unfinished version of you that didn’t know the whole truth. That is worth all of us grieving and celebrating at once.