At 32, I gave up on a dream I accepted as unrealistic and embarked on two others that ultimately brought me great satisfaction in life. I never looked back. Until I retired and realized I'd done everything I'd wanted to do except that one thing. And I thought, you know, what if I tried that old thing again but with less need? What if I just did it for the heck of it without having to succeed or satisfy the ambitions of a 16-year-old me? (I really recommend Sarah Lewis’s The Rise.) The minute I began pursuing my own level of mastery in the shadows, the part of me who'd once “dreamed of more” made peace with who I am. And when, in November of 2023, I almost died, I realized I had zero regrets about anything I hadn't done because I Had Done It -- just quietly, and with no applause. It was lovely. Every night, I say to myself now, “I did it. I did, just not exactly as I pictured, but yeah.” In your 30s and 40s and 50s, sometimes the things you leave undone need to be dropped so they can come ‘round again when you're ready to embrace them in ways only the older you can relish. Be willing to be surprised.
“to lament indefinitely or to embrace the imperfect path we've taken.” Great refelection! I pray you will embrace your imperfect path looking for the places of real joy and choosing to have a go again at the dreams they still call to you from your heart! Oh to be 32 again- have a go at the new thing that calls to you- you won’t regret it!
"Less need" - that's the key. Detachment. Embrace what is and let go of what isn't. Then circle back and embrace what wasn't, with less need. Proud of you 😊
This hit so very hard, cut so intensely deep, I almost wept as I read it. What you put so eloquently into words is the exact thing I've been experiencing for the past few years, since I turned 40. A divorce left me devastated- I realized how much time I'd wasted (16 years) being unhappy and not reaching my personal goals. I can never get the time back. Having kids too young and not finishing college. Never "making it" as a musician or academic or writer. It's been hard to bear. A sadness lingers over all the losses. And my most recent attempt at a career and education hangs by a thread due to politics. I've been feeling the weight of it crushing me lately.
But as I read through to the end of your piece, I thought, perhaps, maybe I can just accept myself as I am whether I ever accomplish my goals or not.
You have truly made me consider what I value in life and in myself. Thank you.
Thank you for taking the time to read my essay GiGi, and I wish you all the best as you move forward in your life! Keep on keeping on. Sometimes that is all we can do. Much love.
I feel you. I am 46, twice divorced, chose not to go to university when I was young, never used my AAS in commercial photography, worked as a hairstylist until I burned out, and now work in the warehouse of a large format print company… as Liz Gilbert says, we could all write a memoir titled: Not Exactly What I Had Planned.
I used to think of my life up until now as a series of failures and unfortunate events; but now I am looking at it as practice. I know now that I can try things out, and move on when they stop working, and that it won’t kill me. I’m going to keep experimenting.
I’m 79. I’ve struggled with my demons my entire life, have had a lot of talk therapy from which I’ve gained insight and have shifted in some areas of my life. However, even at this late date, I’ve decided to try somatic experiencing, a form of trauma therapy based on neurobiology. I’m very excited about this, as I feel that if successful, I will hopefully be more self-accepting and improve my relationships for whatever time I have left.
This brought me to literal tears. Everything I’ve struggled to put into words about how my life unfolded you’ve captured in this piece. At 41, I still have moments of feeling lost and as though I’ve wasted my life. Regret chokes me. And as the days keep ticking away it gets harder to dream. This piece gives me hope though. Maybe I’m too old to actualize certain dreams but there’s still plenty of time (god willing) to create new ones.
Thanks for reading and sharing your feelings here in the comments, Kristin. I'm glad that your takeaway was hope. That is what we need as we continue to live. Wishing you all the best as you work to actualize those dreams!
"Sometimes, the things that haunt us most aren’t what we did wrong, but what we never did. The dreams we abandoned too soon. The opportunities we were too afraid to seize. Over time, the gap between who we are and who we could have been stretches wider, until it feels like a chasm we can never cross."
This is an incredible piece. I can't say I read something more profound and deep and nobody's talking about this important subject. Like we don't allow ourselves to even think about who we could be and what led us to not becoming that person. The grief is real. Thank you ♡
As I approach the end of my 7th decade of living, I see ever more clearly that life is not about achieving, but becoming. And the becoming is defined not by striving, but by loving. And loving is, at its core, a shared thing. So, the more I love, the more I share myself, the more I become.
Beautiful piece! Concise, elegant, eloquent, and insightful. With unflexible work environments, substandard maternity leave, inadequate and unsubsidized preschools, and the fact that women still get paid approximately 3/4 what men do for the similar work, it is often the case that, in heterosexual couples, the woman curtail her career more than the man. The phenomena you are naming are clearly true for all genders, but the deck also seems unfairly stacked when it comes to women accomplishing their big dreams, creative callings, and manifesting their full potential. (As a side note, I suspect this is a significant contributing factor to why women disproportionately suffer from autoimmune disease. When someone's energy and vitality can't fully manifest and express itself in the world, it turns against the body.) Personally, my ambiguous grief about the person I did not become is complicated by (often subconscious) rage towards patriarchy/white supremist culture and by illness.
As side note, an additional thing to consider when one is feeling bad about one's unactualized potential: I've spoken to a number of ministers and chaplains and they have all reflected that, when sitting with people who are dying, the dying typically don't regret the work they didn't do; they regret the time they didn't spend with their loved ones. It turns out love IS the most important thing.
I hope that tidbit brings some comfort to those who are in the grips of ambiguous grief.
Jon - just discovered you with this post. You speak to something I have grappled with for many years. I love your writing and this beautiful essay. Cheers to you, friend. I was so shocked when you mentioned your age. You speak with the wisdom and gravity of someone having a mid-life crisis, like me. haha. I am about to be 49. So I was trying to remember how I felt at your age and I do think that weight was already present, though, true story, it keeps growing heavier and more acute with time. BUT...I have successfully changed careers in my late thirties, raised my kid and sent her off to college, and now I'm about to take the next journey, traveling the world as a digital nomad. All of which is to say, we are always mourning who we never became, have not yet become, but always, with each day, we're given the opportunity to become, again. I used to think of it when I was younger as an infinite number of gray lines and one black line, the road taken, and with each choice, the gray lines become fainter. I want a hundred lives to choose my adventure a hundred different ways. But alas. Anyway, each of our precious lives is an imperfect piece of art, poignant and finite and, I have to believe, exactly as it should be. Thanks for your writing, very excited to read your past and future posts.
You are a beautiful writer. Insightful and profound. I imagine your style of writing would serve humanity type stories very well. Or as an English teacher, be it higher education of course. Public education is afraid of outliers; even though I believe it is what public education needs most, the best teachers that teach our young to think for themselves.
This is lovely and heart rending and true. You’ve given me a name to how I feel. My life was upended 4 years ago, and at 51, I am disparaging of ever doing what I really want to do. While this post tore me open, it also made me think that there is hope. My life looks different than I planned but there are still things I can do. Maybe just not how I originally thought.
Incredible post. I literally sunk into ambiguous grief, then alazia, and finally jolted into acceptance and relief when you presented your resolution. Learning to step into acceptance of who I’ve become and who I realistically can still be is a challenge, but letting the past go not in grief but in acceptance and finality, solidifying who I am today is a real power move and it’s great to see it in words so I can really understand and do so. Thank you so much for this post! Instant subscribe!
So many powerful, aching, beautiful articulations in this piece. I feel that my whole adult life has been full of ambiguous grief, and it's a recurring theme in my writing. Indisputably, I have experienced painful moments when I had to face that some dreams I had in my teens or twenties wouldn't happen. Conversely, I've also experienced how not experiencing some of those dreams was actually a blessing. What I'm learning now after just turning 40, is that to harness the loss into creative energy for the way forward, we must be willing to walk through the shadows of grief.
When I was in my thirties, I was working as a speech-language pathologist and raising my children. I had put aside my dreams of being a choreographer or artist. I'm 66 years old now. I just got my masters in creative writing. In my retirement from my first "real" job as an SLP, I'm a writer, cartoonist, artist, and musician. Those dreams of yours will appear again.
A beautiful piece - you are a gifted writer - and I truly appreciate the light you’re shining on a grief so many can’t name. I LOVE that John Koenig quote “And even if it's true that you're no longer flexible enough to be anybody, you might be getting strong enough to finally be yourself.” I’m 52 now and nothing feels more true. ❤️
I only felt this 'death' once in my life, in late thirties, when I was presented with the choice to have another baby. It was then or never. I remember feeling grief at deciding not to have another baby, at something that never happened. Now I know the term for that grief, and that it is real. Thank you for shedding light on this!
At 32, I gave up on a dream I accepted as unrealistic and embarked on two others that ultimately brought me great satisfaction in life. I never looked back. Until I retired and realized I'd done everything I'd wanted to do except that one thing. And I thought, you know, what if I tried that old thing again but with less need? What if I just did it for the heck of it without having to succeed or satisfy the ambitions of a 16-year-old me? (I really recommend Sarah Lewis’s The Rise.) The minute I began pursuing my own level of mastery in the shadows, the part of me who'd once “dreamed of more” made peace with who I am. And when, in November of 2023, I almost died, I realized I had zero regrets about anything I hadn't done because I Had Done It -- just quietly, and with no applause. It was lovely. Every night, I say to myself now, “I did it. I did, just not exactly as I pictured, but yeah.” In your 30s and 40s and 50s, sometimes the things you leave undone need to be dropped so they can come ‘round again when you're ready to embrace them in ways only the older you can relish. Be willing to be surprised.
Thanks for sharing your experience Elizabeth and thank you for reading! I wish you all the best 🙏🏾
I can relate to this. I restarted piano lessons at 62 and I’ve learned to play music I never imagined I would be able to. For me that’s enough.
“to lament indefinitely or to embrace the imperfect path we've taken.” Great refelection! I pray you will embrace your imperfect path looking for the places of real joy and choosing to have a go again at the dreams they still call to you from your heart! Oh to be 32 again- have a go at the new thing that calls to you- you won’t regret it!
Life is really a long, wonderful ride, isn't it, Elizabeth?
It can be! My brave father died at 47, so I'm mindful of my good fortune.
"Less need" - that's the key. Detachment. Embrace what is and let go of what isn't. Then circle back and embrace what wasn't, with less need. Proud of you 😊
exactly!
Oh how beautiful! This was lovely to read and very encouraging.
This hit so very hard, cut so intensely deep, I almost wept as I read it. What you put so eloquently into words is the exact thing I've been experiencing for the past few years, since I turned 40. A divorce left me devastated- I realized how much time I'd wasted (16 years) being unhappy and not reaching my personal goals. I can never get the time back. Having kids too young and not finishing college. Never "making it" as a musician or academic or writer. It's been hard to bear. A sadness lingers over all the losses. And my most recent attempt at a career and education hangs by a thread due to politics. I've been feeling the weight of it crushing me lately.
But as I read through to the end of your piece, I thought, perhaps, maybe I can just accept myself as I am whether I ever accomplish my goals or not.
You have truly made me consider what I value in life and in myself. Thank you.
Thank you for taking the time to read my essay GiGi, and I wish you all the best as you move forward in your life! Keep on keeping on. Sometimes that is all we can do. Much love.
I feel you. I am 46, twice divorced, chose not to go to university when I was young, never used my AAS in commercial photography, worked as a hairstylist until I burned out, and now work in the warehouse of a large format print company… as Liz Gilbert says, we could all write a memoir titled: Not Exactly What I Had Planned.
I used to think of my life up until now as a series of failures and unfortunate events; but now I am looking at it as practice. I know now that I can try things out, and move on when they stop working, and that it won’t kill me. I’m going to keep experimenting.
Big hugs to you!
I’m 79. I’ve struggled with my demons my entire life, have had a lot of talk therapy from which I’ve gained insight and have shifted in some areas of my life. However, even at this late date, I’ve decided to try somatic experiencing, a form of trauma therapy based on neurobiology. I’m very excited about this, as I feel that if successful, I will hopefully be more self-accepting and improve my relationships for whatever time I have left.
I wish you all the best Barbara!
This brought me to literal tears. Everything I’ve struggled to put into words about how my life unfolded you’ve captured in this piece. At 41, I still have moments of feeling lost and as though I’ve wasted my life. Regret chokes me. And as the days keep ticking away it gets harder to dream. This piece gives me hope though. Maybe I’m too old to actualize certain dreams but there’s still plenty of time (god willing) to create new ones.
Thanks for reading and sharing your feelings here in the comments, Kristin. I'm glad that your takeaway was hope. That is what we need as we continue to live. Wishing you all the best as you work to actualize those dreams!
"Sometimes, the things that haunt us most aren’t what we did wrong, but what we never did. The dreams we abandoned too soon. The opportunities we were too afraid to seize. Over time, the gap between who we are and who we could have been stretches wider, until it feels like a chasm we can never cross."
Truer words were never written.
This is an incredible piece. I can't say I read something more profound and deep and nobody's talking about this important subject. Like we don't allow ourselves to even think about who we could be and what led us to not becoming that person. The grief is real. Thank you ♡
Thank you for reading, Nina. And thank you for sharing your thoughts as well.
As I approach the end of my 7th decade of living, I see ever more clearly that life is not about achieving, but becoming. And the becoming is defined not by striving, but by loving. And loving is, at its core, a shared thing. So, the more I love, the more I share myself, the more I become.
Beautiful piece! Concise, elegant, eloquent, and insightful. With unflexible work environments, substandard maternity leave, inadequate and unsubsidized preschools, and the fact that women still get paid approximately 3/4 what men do for the similar work, it is often the case that, in heterosexual couples, the woman curtail her career more than the man. The phenomena you are naming are clearly true for all genders, but the deck also seems unfairly stacked when it comes to women accomplishing their big dreams, creative callings, and manifesting their full potential. (As a side note, I suspect this is a significant contributing factor to why women disproportionately suffer from autoimmune disease. When someone's energy and vitality can't fully manifest and express itself in the world, it turns against the body.) Personally, my ambiguous grief about the person I did not become is complicated by (often subconscious) rage towards patriarchy/white supremist culture and by illness.
As side note, an additional thing to consider when one is feeling bad about one's unactualized potential: I've spoken to a number of ministers and chaplains and they have all reflected that, when sitting with people who are dying, the dying typically don't regret the work they didn't do; they regret the time they didn't spend with their loved ones. It turns out love IS the most important thing.
I hope that tidbit brings some comfort to those who are in the grips of ambiguous grief.
Jon - just discovered you with this post. You speak to something I have grappled with for many years. I love your writing and this beautiful essay. Cheers to you, friend. I was so shocked when you mentioned your age. You speak with the wisdom and gravity of someone having a mid-life crisis, like me. haha. I am about to be 49. So I was trying to remember how I felt at your age and I do think that weight was already present, though, true story, it keeps growing heavier and more acute with time. BUT...I have successfully changed careers in my late thirties, raised my kid and sent her off to college, and now I'm about to take the next journey, traveling the world as a digital nomad. All of which is to say, we are always mourning who we never became, have not yet become, but always, with each day, we're given the opportunity to become, again. I used to think of it when I was younger as an infinite number of gray lines and one black line, the road taken, and with each choice, the gray lines become fainter. I want a hundred lives to choose my adventure a hundred different ways. But alas. Anyway, each of our precious lives is an imperfect piece of art, poignant and finite and, I have to believe, exactly as it should be. Thanks for your writing, very excited to read your past and future posts.
Karen, thank you so much for reading and taking the time to share your thoughts here. I really appreciate it and wish you al the best!
You are a beautiful writer. Insightful and profound. I imagine your style of writing would serve humanity type stories very well. Or as an English teacher, be it higher education of course. Public education is afraid of outliers; even though I believe it is what public education needs most, the best teachers that teach our young to think for themselves.
Thank you so much!
This is lovely and heart rending and true. You’ve given me a name to how I feel. My life was upended 4 years ago, and at 51, I am disparaging of ever doing what I really want to do. While this post tore me open, it also made me think that there is hope. My life looks different than I planned but there are still things I can do. Maybe just not how I originally thought.
Thanks for reading, Ami. I’m happy to hear ti connected with you.
Incredible post. I literally sunk into ambiguous grief, then alazia, and finally jolted into acceptance and relief when you presented your resolution. Learning to step into acceptance of who I’ve become and who I realistically can still be is a challenge, but letting the past go not in grief but in acceptance and finality, solidifying who I am today is a real power move and it’s great to see it in words so I can really understand and do so. Thank you so much for this post! Instant subscribe!
Thanks for sharing your experience Aaron! I wish you all the best going forward and can’t thank you enough for subscribing. Take care 🙏🏾
So many powerful, aching, beautiful articulations in this piece. I feel that my whole adult life has been full of ambiguous grief, and it's a recurring theme in my writing. Indisputably, I have experienced painful moments when I had to face that some dreams I had in my teens or twenties wouldn't happen. Conversely, I've also experienced how not experiencing some of those dreams was actually a blessing. What I'm learning now after just turning 40, is that to harness the loss into creative energy for the way forward, we must be willing to walk through the shadows of grief.
Thank you for both reading and sharing your experience Nyamwathi!
When I was in my thirties, I was working as a speech-language pathologist and raising my children. I had put aside my dreams of being a choreographer or artist. I'm 66 years old now. I just got my masters in creative writing. In my retirement from my first "real" job as an SLP, I'm a writer, cartoonist, artist, and musician. Those dreams of yours will appear again.
I hope so.
A beautiful piece - you are a gifted writer - and I truly appreciate the light you’re shining on a grief so many can’t name. I LOVE that John Koenig quote “And even if it's true that you're no longer flexible enough to be anybody, you might be getting strong enough to finally be yourself.” I’m 52 now and nothing feels more true. ❤️
I only felt this 'death' once in my life, in late thirties, when I was presented with the choice to have another baby. It was then or never. I remember feeling grief at deciding not to have another baby, at something that never happened. Now I know the term for that grief, and that it is real. Thank you for shedding light on this!
Thank you for reading MJ, and thank you for sharing a bit of your story 🙏🏾