Missing What Never Was

I think it’s okay to miss something and not want it back.In my previous relationship, my partner and I almost had a baby together. We had a miscarriage. And years later, I guess I’m still working through it.There are days I go back to the imagination I had of what my baby was going to be like. His face. His hair. His eyes, like his father’s.I pictured him as a toddler.I pictured my dynamic with him.I pictured myself trying my best to create a life for him that I didn’t have, or maybe one I would have wanted.Years later, I’m no longer in that relationship. I don’t have my baby.I’m in another relationship now, and I’m very happy.And yet I still hold the tension.I still imagine what my life would have been like if my baby had been born. The trajectory it might have taken.I can’t say I know exactly why things happen. I have my ideas, my theories. Most of them are probably coping mechanisms. Maybe some of it is divine revelation. What do I know?But on days like today, it’s like my body remembers. It feels like something was meant to be and just chose not to be.And I say “meant to be” through my own filter. Because if it really was meant to be, then he would be here, right?This is the interesting part of the human experience. We like to think in all or nothing. But it’s not always all or nothing. Sometimes it’s a little bit of everything. And sometimes it’s a whole lot of nothing.So today, I don’t miss what I used to have.But I do miss what I imagined could have been.I still wonder what it would have looked like.Am I guilty for that? Am I wrong? Is it selfish?I don’t know.What I do know is this: it’s okay to grieve even something that didn’t happen. You can grieve what your imagination hoped for. You can grieve the story your mind thought was going to unfold.Because whether I admit it or not, my body knows grief.The moment I get quiet with myself, the tears come.Like my body has been waiting all this time for me to feel it.So yeah… that’s that.That’s where I’m at today.