Grieving What Never Was

Grief is strange.

Sometimes we grieve the people we have lost. Sometimes we grieve relationships that changed. And sometimes we grieve something that never fully existed, but meant everything to us because we believed it still could.

That is the kind of grief people do not always understand.

How do you explain mourning a future that only lived in your heart?

How do you explain the pain of realizing that something you quietly hoped for was never waiting for you on the other side?

There are times when we hold onto possibilities long after life has started moving in another direction. We tell ourselves that maybe the timing was wrong. Maybe healing still needs to happen. Maybe one day the person who could not love us the way we needed will finally understand what they