Have you ever realized that part of your heartbreak came from an expectation you created yourself? Not because your feelings weren’t valid or someone didn’t hurt you, but because somewhere along the way, you built an entire future in your imagination and started treating it like a promise. The holidays, the relationships, the memories, and the versions of people you hoped would exist. And when reality didn’t match the picture you’d created, you found yourself grieving something you never actually had.
I think one of the things we don’t admit is how easily we become attached to an imaginary future. We create beautiful pictures in our minds, often because something about our present circumstances isn’t what we’d hoped for. We imagine how much happier we’d be if things were different, conveniently leaving out the complications that come with real life. I’ve had to ask myself an uncomfortable question. Am I comparing my actual life, with all its imperfections, to an imaginary life where everything works out exactly as I want it to?
For years, I pictured a particular version of family life. Holidays together, cousins growing up side by side, and the kind of family traditions I remembered from childhood. I wanted those memories for my daughter. But eventually, I recognized that the relationships I imagined would require healing, communication, and change from multiple people, myself included. I was so focused on the destination that I hadn’t considered the little cobblestone steps required to get there. And here’s another uncomfortable thought. How often do we become disappointed with people for failing to meet expectations we’ve never actually communicated? Sometimes we’re living through the same situation with two entirely different understandings of what the relationship should look like.
I didn’t always see things this way. After unexpectedly losing my dad seven days before my daughter was born, my perspective on life began to change. My faith journey began shortly afterward, and eventually I felt strongly that God was urging me to reach out to someone I’d been estranged from. This happened while I was taking a bath, and my immediate response was that they needed a knuckle sandwich instead. Yes, apparently I thought arguing with the Almighty was a solid idea. But I sent the message anyway. Three days later, I attended church for the first time, and the sermon was about Cain and Abel. You can imagine my reaction.
That experience challenged me to examine my own behavior, and what I discovered wasn’t always pretty. I’d been hurt, but I’d also deliberately hurt someone else in response. When I finally acknowledged their pain, I started understanding my own differently. I stopped seeing a villain and a victim and started recognizing two hurt hearts. I didn’t need an apology in return. I wanted to take responsibility for my behavior while making sure the other person’s hurt was acknowledged, too. Acknowledging someone else’s pain doesn’t make our own smaller. Sometimes it simply puts the humility back into our humanity. And perhaps that’s worth considering. Are we genuinely trying to understand someone else’s hurt, or are we so focused on proving our own that we’ve stopped listening?
I’ve also learned that recognizing our mistakes doesn’t guarantee a relationship will change alongside us. Forgiveness is something I can work through within myself and with God, while reconciliation requires two willing people. I’m proud of my growth, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish certain people could recognize it. As I’ve grown in my faith, I picture that growth like a tree. My roots deepen, my branches spread, and I hope the fruit of the Spirit becomes more visible in how I treat people. I wish certain people could experience the shade of that tree, too. But a tree cannot make someone sit beneath its branches. It can only keep growing. And just because I’ve grown in certain ways doesn’t mean everyone else is healing at the same pace, or working toward the same future.
But perhaps the most uncomfortable question I’ve started asking is whether I’m actually prepared for the future I’ve spent so long imagining. It’s easy to picture healed relationships and happy family gatherings, but those moments may require difficult conversations, rebuilding trust, and hearing things about ourselves we’d rather not hear. We spend so much time wondering whether someone else is willing to change that we forget to examine our own readiness. Can I listen without immediately defending myself? Can I acknowledge needs that differ from mine? Am I prepared for the difficult work, or am I simply in love with the finished picture? Maybe it’s worth asking ourselves what that future would actually require. What conversations would need to happen? What expectations would need to be communicated? And which parts are within our control? Sometimes examining the steps required to reach the future we’re imagining can help us understand whether we’re prepared for the reality of it.
And even after recognizing all of that, letting go isn’t easy. Hope can feel like a pot of boiling water. At first, it’s full and bubbling with possibility. Then the years pass, the water slowly evaporates, and eventually there’s barely anything left. I wish I could say I’ve learned to hope without becoming attached to an outcome, but I haven’t. Sometimes I’m still angry about the years that have passed. Losing my dad taught me how quickly life can change. We cannot get time back, and we cannot make more of it. But I’ve also had to wonder whether dwelling on the years I’ve lost is costing me more of the time I still have.
There’s a song called Stick Season by Noah Kahan that always makes me think of my dad. There’s a lyric about dreaming of a version of someone you never actually had, but never technically lost either. For me, that’s the grandfather my dad never got the chance to become. I lost my dad, but I also lost the opportunity to watch him become a grandpa. I grieve the memories they never got to make together, even though those memories never had the chance to exist. But I’ve realized those words apply to other relationships, too. Sometimes we’re grieving versions of people and futures that never quite existed outside our imagination.
I can spend an entire holiday surrounded by family, laughing and genuinely enjoying myself, only to find my mind wandering afterward to how things might have looked if certain people had been there. That doesn’t make the memories I created any less meaningful. It simply means I’m learning to make room for gratitude and grief in the same life.
Maybe we can’t miss memories we never made in quite the same way we miss the ones we actually lived. But we can grieve the future we’d already made room for in our hearts. That grief is real, even when the memories aren’t. And perhaps acceptance isn’t about pretending those dreams never mattered or forcing ourselves to stop hoping. Maybe it’s about recognizing that while we’re looking back at the life we imagined, there’s another life happening right in front of us, one that’s still full of memories waiting to be made. So here’s the question I’m learning to ask myself. Am I giving the life I’m living the same attention I’ve given the one I imagined?
With love and a little grace,
Ashton ♡
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