From The Things We Don’t Talk About

For a long time, I was going to be an actor. Not in a vague, wouldn’t that be fun? kind of way. In my head, that was the trajectory. That was the life. Somewhere in my imagined future were auditions, roles, performances, and, obviously, an Academy Award or two. I said imagined. I didn’t say modest.

That isn’t the life I have. There are no Academy Awards on my shelves. Instead, I’m a wife, a mom, and someone who somehow built a career around talking to people about the complicated business of being human. And I love my life.

That’s the part I want to make very clear before I say the thing we’re apparently not supposed to say: sometimes I grieve the life I didn’t live. Not because I secretly wish I could trade this one for that one. Not because I regret the choices that brought me here. And certainly not because I’m disappointed by the people who became part of the life I actually built.

I just sometimes wonder about her, the version of me who kept going down that road. Did she make it? Did she ever get that ridiculous Academy Award? Did she love the work as much as I imagined she would? Did she eventually decide Los Angeles was terrible and move somewhere with actual seasons? Was she happy?

I don’t know. She doesn’t exist. But for a long time, I thought she would. And maybe that’s why there can be a strange kind of grief attached to the lives we don’t live. We aren’t necessarily grieving something we lost. Sometimes we’re grieving something we once expected to become real.

Grieving Something That Never Happened

Grief is a strange word to use for something you never actually had. We tend to associate grief with losing something that existed: a person, a relationship, a job, a home, or a version of life we actually experienced. It feels different to say you’re grieving something that only ever existed in your imagination. After all, how can you lose something you never had?

But I think we build relationships with our imagined futures, too. We make plans around them. We picture ourselves inside them. We make decisions because we assume we’re moving toward them. Sometimes we spend years expecting that eventually this thing, whatever it is, will become part of our story. When life moves in another direction, there may not be a single moment when that imagined future disappears. One day, though, we look around and realize that somewhere along the way, it quietly became a life we’re no longer going to live.

And that can hurt, even when the life that replaced it is good.

Maybe your version isn’t an acting career and an imaginary Academy Award. Maybe you thought you’d have children, or thought you wouldn’t. Maybe you pictured yourself married to someone you’re no longer with. Maybe there was a career you were certain you’d pursue, a place you always thought you’d live, a friendship you assumed would last forever, or simply a version of yourself you were convinced you’d become.

Some of those unlived lives are taken from us by circumstances we never chose. Others disappear because of decisions we made willingly. And sometimes we simply change. What we wanted at 20 isn’t necessarily what we want at 40. That doesn’t mean the person we were at 20 was foolish for wanting it, or that the person we are now secretly wishes we’d chosen differently. It just means we remember wanting it.

As it turns out, there is serious scholarship behind at least some of this. Researchers and philosophers studying grief have argued that grief can extend beyond bereavement and can involve the loss of significant life possibilities, not only the loss of something concrete that once existed. Work on non-death loss also makes room for the idea that people can experience grief around possibilities, plans, and futures that no longer feel available.

I find that strangely comforting. Not because I need a psychological term to legitimize every feeling I have, but because it reminds me that wondering about an unlived life isn’t necessarily evidence that something is wrong with the one I’m living.

Gratitude Doesn’t Cancel Grief

I think this is where the whole thing gets uncomfortable. If your life is good, admitting that you sometimes grieve another version of it can feel almost ungrateful. There is an unspoken expectation that once we’re happy with where we ended up, we’re supposed to stop wondering about where else we might have gone. We chose this path, or life chose it for us, and now we’re here. If we’re happy here, shouldn’t that be enough?

I don’t think gratitude works that way. Being grateful for the life I have doesn’t require me to pretend I never imagined another one. Loving my husband doesn’t erase the person I was before I met him. Loving being a mom doesn’t mean every other possible version of my adulthood stopped existing in my imagination the moment I became one. And loving the work I do now doesn’t mean I have to rewrite my history and claim that this was secretly the plan all along. It wasn’t. I thought I was going to be an actor. Life went somewhere else.

And here’s the part that has taken me some time to understand: I don’t have to decide which life was the better one. I couldn’t possibly know. The other one never happened. I can imagine all kinds of wonderful things about it because imaginary lives are remarkably cooperative that way. They don’t have mortgages, boring Tuesdays, difficult coworkers, unexpected losses, or laundry unless we decide to give them those things.

Maybe somewhere in that imaginary life I won the Academy Award. Maybe I spent fifteen years waiting tables between auditions and eventually decided I hated acting. Maybe I became wildly successful and desperately lonely. Maybe I was ridiculously happy. There is no way to know because the person I’m comparing myself to exists entirely in my imagination.

What I do know is this life. I know the people in it. I know what I’ve built, what I’ve learned, what I’ve lost, what has surprised me, and what has mattered more than I ever could have predicted when I was younger and mentally rehearsing acceptance speeches. I love this life, and every once in a while, I still wonder about that one. Those truths don’t compete with each other.

Maybe You Don’t Have to Let Her Go

For me, the person I thought I’d become isn’t someone I need to get over. She’s part of my story, even though her life never happened. She tells me something about who I was, what mattered to me, and what I once believed was possible.

I don’t need to convince my younger self that she wanted the wrong things. She didn’t. She wanted what she wanted with the information, hopes, and dreams she had at the time. I can look back at her with affection rather than embarrassment or regret.

Maybe that’s part of making peace with the lives we don’t live. We don’t have to erase them, diminish them, or turn them into lessons about why everything worked out exactly as it was supposed to. We can simply acknowledge that they mattered to us.

I may never accept an Academy Award. I’m reasonably confident the window on that particular career trajectory has closed. Although, for the record, if someone wants to cast me as the delightfully sarcastic middle-aged librarian who solves crimes on the weekends, I remain available. I already know the perfect archaeologist to play my sidekick. And apparently, I’ve now pivoted from an Oscar to an Emmy.

But I don’t need that life to have been a foolish dream in order for this life to be a good one. Grieving a life you didn’t live doesn’t mean you’d trade it for the one you have. Sometimes it simply means you remember the person who once believed she would.

Something to Sit With

What life did you once imagine for yourself? You don’t have to decide whether it would have been better or worse than the one you’re living. Just notice what comes up when you think about it. What did that version of you want? And what might it be like to remember them with curiosity instead of regret?

Want to Keep Exploring?

If this idea has you curious, these are two places worth wandering next. Both come from peer-reviewed academic work rather than the wellness-content machine.

• On the Appropriateness of Grief to Its Object, by Matthew Ratcliffe, Louise Richardson, and Becky Millar. The authors explore grief as involving the loss of significant life possibilities, which is especially relevant to the idea of grieving futures that never came to be.
• Grief and the Non-Death Losses of COVID-19, by Louise Richardson and Becky Millar. This open-access paper explores whether grief can meaningfully apply to significant losses beyond death and helps broaden the conversation about what we are allowed to call grief.