I Never Expected It to Be “This Way”

There’s this version of life we create in our heads when we’re younger. It’s not necessarily the most perfect life, it’s just… different than this.

I guess I imagined adulthood looking stable.

I thought if I worked hard enough, planned enough, stayed responsible enough, life would eventually settle into something predictable. I was prepared for the responsibilities. I had planned out what my life and my future looked like and when the time came for me to make a move, I hit the ground running.

Along the way, life started introducing me to versions of myself I never planned on becoming. Tired. Grieving. Anxious. Rebuilding.

There’s this shock that comes over you when you realize you are becoming someone you don’t recognize because that’s what life demanded from you. Sometimes the hardest part isn’t even what happened. It’s realizing how deeply it changed you.

I never expected it to be this way. I never planned to be sick.

Sickness hit my body and took over. What do you do when your body needs more from you than you can physically give? How do you plan for your body failing?

One hard season rolled into another. I struggled with learning how to let old versions of myself die without hating myself for who I had to become to survive certain seasons.

There is a lot of grief that comes with that.

My grief didn’t make sense to the outside eye. The otherwise healthy, able-bodied person wasn’t experiencing life the same way that I experienced it daily. Grieving your life while you are actively living gets heavy real quick.

I was grieving losing my capacity. I grieved a body that looked the same on the outside while my entire world changed internally.

Grief makes you quieter. More guarded. More exhausted. It teaches you how to function while falling apart.

Maybe that’s why so many of us stay busy. Busy feels safer than feeling. Busy delays the questions. Busy gives us something to point at while quietly avoiding ourselves.

Busy allows us to keep telling ourselves, “Once I get through this part, I’ll finally breathe.”

Once you become aware of what’s hurting you, it becomes harder to keep pretending it isn’t. Eventually life has a way of slowing you down long enough to notice what needs your attention. Mine did.

As painful as it was, it forced me to confront the parts of myself I had abandoned while trying to survive. I never expected to outgrow people, but my health required me to do so. I never expected my boundaries to become, “my peace keeps me alive,” yet here we are and I am heavy on the peace.

My truth is that this has been a less-than-graceful journey for me.

Sometimes it looks like grief.
Sometimes it looks like anger.
Sometimes it looks like mourning the life I thought I would have.

Regardless of how it plays out, I am grateful. I am no longer just surviving my life.

Just because life didn’t happen the way I expected doesn’t mean it’s over. Some of the most beautiful versions of people are born after life completely humbles them.

Sometimes life falls apart so you can finally meet yourself underneath it all.