Somewhere, another me is living the life I gave up

The invisible grief that comes with becoming.

Unknown illustrator

Missing out is part of existing.
We can be very greedy and want it all, but all is not possible.
You can have anything, but you can’t have everything at the same time.

And while I’m sitting at the Istanbul airport on my way to Sri Lanka, having a delicious Turkish coffee while listening to the one and only Müslüm Gürses, I suddenly feel somewhat nostalgic.

So, I poured my thoughts below:

We grieve what we thought would be
and was not.
We grieve the love we no longer have
and the life we thought would be ours.
We grieve the version of ourselves
we could have been
and might not be.

We grieve
missing out on what would’ve meant going south
when we decide we want to go north.

Grief is part of existence.
It comes with being alive,
with feeling,
with loving,
with choosing,
even when it’s hard.

Every new choice is a new life.
And maybe
we won’t get to live all those lives to the fullest.
But we’ll get a taste
of endless micro-lives
within one big life.

And I believe
that’s living to the fullest.