The Grief of an Unlived Life

One of the things I have come to learn since my “midlife pivot” is that a woman can deeply love her children while also grieving the loss of herself. 

Those two realities are not in conflict; however, it can be difficult for those around us to understand this concept and doubly difficult to discuss it openly.

When I was quite a bit younger my mom would say things like, “I wish I had waited to have children.” Given my young age I could not yet relate to what she was really saying. As I was the oldest in the family, I internalized her words to mean she didn’t want ME. 

Looking back to when I was a young mom, I recall vividly how I did not want my children to get the idea that I ever had a second thought about choosing to be their mom. At that time, I still could not understand the sentiment my mom had expressed as the shadow of feeling unwanted continued to loom over me. In becoming a mom, my own life followed the same pattern as my mom - my first child was born when I was twenty and my fifth was born when I had just turned twenty-nine. 

During those years when my children were being raised, all my energy was focused on everything outside of myself. I quickly began to lose my own sense of identity, believing that any attention on me meant that I was being selfish and that it would harm my family. Little by little, I lost my sense of sovereignty. As I devoted myself to raising a family, I found it increasingly difficult to remember that I was a woman with a life, a voice, and an identity of my own. There came a point in my life when I could no longer identify any genuine interests outside of being a wife, a mother, and a churchgoer.

Whenever I began pursuing interests that belonged to me, they were discouraged or dismissed. Somewhere along the way, I had stopped asking myself what brought me joy, what stirred my curiosity, or what kind of woman I wanted to become. Over time, I learned to set those parts of myself aside. 

For nearly three decades, I continued the cycle of self-sacrifice, laying my everything on the altar for my family. 

Then a shift began to happen inside of me and the part of me that had been silenced started to make loud noises within. I initially tried to ignore the noise until one night I found myself lying on the bathroom floor in the fetal position in a life or death moment. I knew exactly then that I could not continue to live in denial of myself any longer. That night I took one of the bravest steps I have ever taken in my life and I spoke what I had wanted to speak for years. 

“I am choosing me.”

In order for me to get out of the self-sacrifice, self-abandonment box that had been molded both for and by me, my journey towards recovery not only required that I leave the religion I had been raised in but also my marriage. As terrifying as it was, for the first time in my life I allowed myself to focus on reclaiming me.

During the early days of recovery, the process initially was really messy as I had carried so much internal suffering for decades. Like a hoarder's home, my mind, body, and soul had a lot of shit to unpack and get rid of. 

I had to wrestle and come to terms with the fact that a good portion of my life had been programmed for me and that I had lived according to obedience and sacrifice rather than fullness and joy. 

As I continued to process what had taken place in my life I was surprised by the grief I felt — a gift that, looking back now, I am deeply grateful for. At first, I resisted it. I wanted to move forward without having to feel the weight of everything I had lost. But grief has a way of asking us to slow down and acknowledge what is real.

For years, I had buried my feelings beneath responsibility, sacrifice, and survival. Grieving became the process of allowing those feelings to finally surface and be felt. At times it felt like standing in the ocean during a storm, each wave threatening to pull me under. Yet with each wave I allowed myself to feel rather than suppress; and in time, the waves gradually lost their power. Over time, the water became calmer, and so did I.

As I travelled through the waters of healing, I came to understand that loving my children deeply and grieving the loss of myself were never opposing truths. They were simply two truths that had always existed together.

This awareness helped me accept what had happened with my life and put me in the space where I could reclaim it. It was not too late to become the woman I had always been. Leaning into this newfound joy, and leaving behind pretended performance, I found that the clipped wings of my past were healing and I was gaining momentum to soar. Where once I was a “knees on the floor” people pleaser, I was growing into the healthy space of a woman who is assertive and who practices self-agency. My worth and value now come from inside of me.

To me, sovereignty doesn't mean independence from everyone else. It means that your inner authority belongs to you. You can love deeply, serve others generously, and be devoted to your family without surrendering ownership of your identity, your conscience, or your capacity to choose.

As I look back, I can see now that loving one’s children does not require that you loved every expectation placed upon you. Longing for, and creating a different life is not the same as regretting the people who came into your life. I now realize that I can love my children while also loving me.

With so much love,

The Modern Day Pioneer