• Grief isn't limited to losing a person; we also grieve dreams, timelines, and versions of ourselves that never came to be.
• Gratitude and grief can coexist. You can love your life and still mourn what never happened.
• Comparing our real life to an imagined timeline steals joy and keeps us stuck.
• You can release the timeline without releasing the dream. What you wanted at 25 may not be what you want at 45.
• Life's hardest detours often become the source of our deepest empathy, strength, and purpose.
• Honesty about disappointment, paired with a willingness to let it go, opens the door to real peace and joy.

Episode 14

Maybe you imagined a marriage that lasted forever, or maybe a different career. Maybe you thought you'd have more money, more freedom, more security, or fewer struggles by now. Maybe you pictured a version of your future that simply didn't unfold the way you expected. Today, we're gonna talk about the grieving the life that you thought you'd have and making peace with the life that's still waiting for you

You still grieve them. And futures that we once believed were certain, that changed. And because these losses aren't always visible, we often feel guilty for grieving them. And we tell ourselves, "Other people have it worse than me. I should be grateful. I shouldn't feel this way." But gratitude and grief can exist together.

You can appreciate your life and still mourn what never came to be

Many of us were handed a picture of what life was supposed to look like. expectations versus reality here. Go to school, get married, build a family, work hard, and everything's gonna fall into place, and life really follows a straight line, right? Ever see that meme where like God's plan or like my plan in my head, and it's like the straight line and it's up and down and it's fine.

And when reality doesn't match our expectations, disappointment can quietly settle into our hearts, not because we failed, but because we're holding on to a different story. The weight of the words like, "I thought I'd be here by now," or, "I thought by now I'd be happier. I'd be further along. I thought by now my marriage would be different.

it's not that it was imaginary, just in our head this is where we thought we'd be. And no one wins with comparison. Comparison is the thief of joy, always, whether it's with other people or with ourselves, with our current life, the thought, the, our past life or the future life. comparing serves nobody And one of the bravest things that we can do is release the timeline.

you can stop being like, "I have to have this done by this a- age and this by this age." I've had people in my life like that. I've watched people be like, I gotta, graduate high school, and then I gotta get married and have babies by the time I'm this age, and then I can stop having babies by this age, and this is how it's gonna work," and blah, blah, blah.

you can let go of the timeline. You don't have to let go of the dream because sometimes the dream changes and sometimes we change. What you wanted at 25 may not be what you're gonna want at 45 or 50. The person you were then is not the person you are now. I know I'm not. I am way d- I am definitely not that girl.

I am a completely different person, and it's groovy. I l- there were a lot of parts I loved about young Kim, and there were a lot of parts I loved about middle-aged Kim, and I'm still middle-aged, but I'm going on the older side of middle-aged at this point. And you know what? I'm very content with who I am.

Tragedy changes us. Grief changes us. Health scares change us you know, family and friends that you thought you would have forever in your life either pass away or drift apart. your life will not look the same at 50 as it does in your 20s, and you should be grateful for that because with each part of that comes the molding and a lesson, and it gets you to the next step.

It just may not be the step that you thought you were gonna be in. there is wisdom in allowing yourself to evolve. There is a freedom in acknowledging that your path does not have to look like everybody else's. It doesn't. And honestly, in this day and age, I feel like the people who kinda beat to their, Dance to their own beat

This is how I'm happy dressing. This is how I'm happy just being me." And it's okay, and they're happy, and people love them for it. I would rather be different than be like anybody else anyway. Gosh, like, why do you wanna be like every egg in the dozen? I wanna be the blue egg or the dark brown egg. I don't wanna be the same light beige egg as everybody else.

It is so much more fun to be different

Because trust me, until you walk through something, you will never empathize with somebody the way you do when you've walked through the same thing yourself, no matter what that looks like And the purposes that we have found are not because the detours were easy, but because they shaped us. Sometimes what feels like a setback actually becomes part of our story that prepares us for what's next.

And as we make peace with each different path, it doesn't mean that we're pretending that nothing hurt. It just means denying the disappointment. It means releasing the fight against reality. It means saying, "Hey, this isn't what I expected, but here I am, and I can still create something meaningful from here."

Your story is not over because it didn't go according to plan. In fact, some of the most beautiful chapters are written after the plans fall apart

It wasn't But I got pregnant at 19 years old. I didn't even babysit people's kids, hardly ever. I had no patience for children. I didn't wanna deal with them. thought they were whiny and little runny-nosed little buggers. But again, I was 18, and I was working, I think, like two or three jobs.

I was saving up money. I was gonna travel. I had plans, things I wanted to do. I wanted to go to college, and where I wanted to go to college was not, not in the plans for where people wanted me to go. So in my stubbornness, instead of just going somewhere that they would like that I would go, I just didn't go at all.

that in itself, that one step, if I just went somewhere else, I probably wouldn't have ended up in the life that I am now. So I got pregnant with my son Tyler,

We decided to get together and celebrate, Christmastime together, even though we weren't really barely even getting along. We ended up obviously procreating, and I ended up pregnant with my son. And because he and I already had our issues from something else, I never even told him I was pregnant. I just disappeared.

because I didn't want someone telling me how I was going to have a baby, raise a baby. He was young at the time, really not in a place where he was going to

so I raised my son, and I was with him by myself. Next thing you know, like eventually I met my first husband and we ended up getting married. We had Raquel, I had Johnno, I had Matt, and we had more babies.

And I did grieve that a little bit, But at the end of the day, what I discovered was what was actually meant for me was so much better. I had no idea how much I loved being a mom, how much I loved being with my kids, how much I loved watching them grow, how much I loved helping them, pouring into them, being with them.

I love all our kids, my s- my kids, my stepkids, my nephew kids, and my extra kids, because if you have that many, you get all their friends too, and I love all those kids, and I love them just like they're my kids too. And one of the craziest detours in my life, being a single mom at 19 years old, turned into an amazing life where I am loved beyond measure, and I get to love beyond measure.

everyone's in a wonderful place. We're old now. I love being able to see my son's father and say hello to him. I love being able to see my ex-husband and get along with him quite fine so all our children can see us getting along and being an example of what you can be despite what the past is

Your life will change

So my son probably saved my life And he made me the mom that I am for the rest of them. So you never know Did I think? I thought I was gonna be a nurse or a doctor.

And that went on the back burner. Instead, I run a doctor's office. My daughter became a doctor. And you know what? That's amazing. But you know what? I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be right now And I learned a lot and I had great experiences. I worked at one of the best hospitals in Boston for years.

I learned so much just being there, medically and managerially

We just go in different steps. I thought I'd be a doctor. I ended up being, I'm a house mom. I help pregnant girls when they have babies and they're struggling overnight and they're scared and they don't know how to get the baby to stop crying because it's got a gas bubble, or they go into labor in the middle of night.

I was slightly homeless at one point. I just have a heart because I walked all these crazy things, and you know what? The crazy road got me to where I am now. And I did used to grieve it. I used to be jealous of, the perfect girls who went to college and met their forever beau as they were going to collage, and then they ended up having, their wedding, and then they had their perfect babies, and then they went on and had their perfect little life.

And amazing for them, and I'm sure it's, it looked that way on the outside. I'm sure everyone has their own struggles. They all walk through their own stuff. But you know what? I like my messy story. I like my messy things because my messy things brought me to you. My messy things

make me who I am today. So you can grieve who you thought you were gonna be. You can grieve where you thought you'd be by now. But You don't get to stay there

You don't get to stay there

You can walk through divorces and remarry. You can do the things. The more honest you are about your disappointment and letting it go, the sooner you can really grasp the life that you're trying to live now and find peace in that and joy. Because it's okay to be honest about your grief, but it's also great to be excited about where you're at or where you're going So I want you to really sit in there and think.

What gifts or strengths or opportunities have emerged from the path I didn't choose? What would it look like to trust this season even if I fully don't understand it?"

If you've been carrying disappointment about where life has taken you, I want you to know something

You have the power to change where you wanna be. You have the power to find joy in the present moment. You are not behind, you are not broken, and your story is not over. The path may look a little different than you imagined, but different doesn't mean wrong. Sometimes the life we end up with teaches us the lessons the life we never planned ever could So this week, just take the moment to honor the dreams that didn't happen.