On loss, perspective, and the quiet work of beginning again
A path that made sense.
A plan that felt certain.
We plan as if life will unfold in a straight line.
As if decisions lead neatly to outcomes.
But life rarely moves that way.
You’ve just found your feet in high school and
your parents move you to a new state.
You get an incredible work opportunity abroad —
but you fall in love and stay.
You map out careers and universities. Everything feels like it’s falling into place…
then life shifts.
You fall pregnant, you get married.
You finally get all your ducks in a row, life happens,
and what you’ve build collapses.
You’re an athlete with a near-guaranteed future,
and it’s taken away overnight.
Even the small, mediocre plans
that don’t work out
disappoint just as deeply as the big ones.
No one really prepares you for that.
For how often you’ll have to go back to the drawing board —
and how it’s just not as easy as that.
Because you don’t start over empty. You start over carrying everything.
Between what was planned and what is… there is a space... And in that space — you reimagine.
Everything you’ve seen, heard, been told.
Everything that has happened to you —
and even what hasn’t.
The people, the expectations, the world around you.
We build an idea of how life ought to be.
And even as we plan,
life is always also shaped by what is happening around us.
So why is it so difficult to accept and adapt?
Because there is grief.
Grief of what was, that will never be again.
Grief of what could have been, that will never realise.
Grief of a part of us that ceases to exist.
To some, certain things may seem insignificant —
but when it holds value to you,
when you’ve invested time, effort, and thought,
it is a major life occurrence.
When one door closes, another opens…
But,
…there is a space in between
where a life is lost,
for good.
And coming to terms with that
is not as simple as walking through another door.
What you find between those doors
is the
process of reflecting,
and reimagining.