Grieving the One You Hoped For
I grieve the person I thought they were, even as I accept the reality of who they actually are.
Have you noticed how one of the heaviest griefs is not the loss of who they were, but the loss of who you hoped they would become? The early version. The good days. The future you could picture clearly enough to want. That picture felt real because, in some moments, it was. And the part of you that loved is not foolish for having loved what you saw.
But the picture you held was not the whole of them. It was the part you needed to be true, and the part you kept choosing to believe in, long past when what you were seeing — quietly, persistently — asked you to choose otherwise. You did not stay because you were naive. You stayed because hope is sticky, especially the kind of hope that has been carefully fed.
Now, on the other side, you can let the picture be what it was: a hope, not a fact. You can mourn it without going back to test it one more time. You can let yourself cry for the dream and still hold the truth.
This grief is real, and it deserves room. You are mourning a future. You are mourning the version of yourself that believed in the future. You are mourning the time it took to learn what you have now learned. Let yourself feel all of it, without rushing the feeling along. Grief is the doorway through which you become free of what you grieve. You are walking the shore now, and the shore is allowed to be the place where you finally weep for the long voyage.