Grieving the relationships and life you never had.

You know the word grief.
You think of losing someone who was once there, and now they aren’t.

But what about grieving someone who was never there to begin with? But instead of someone, it’s everyone.

Devil advocates would say, “At least you’ll never know what loss feels like… you’ve never had to lose them in the first place.” In their heads, this makes it all easier.

Last I checked, I’m still human. And like any human. I still deserved real connection. I’ve lost everything and everyone I should’ve had, but did not have. I’m mourning the death of a life and relationships that never existed and was not built on love.

I was so lonely, and nobody ever saw it. Because I quickly learned as a child, that my pain does not matter. My pain wasn’t worth the emotional discomfort of people whose lives were shaped by relationship privilege.

I was just a child and the way I made sense of it all. Is that there must be something wrong with me. I never had anyone to tell little me that it was never her fault.

But what I did have was:
The “mum” who believed I was never good enough for her.
A “dad” who believed I was too much for his wallet.
A “family” that focused on your anger, not the pain underneath it.

Someone once told me something that has never left me:

It’s harder to have never had someone at all
than to have had them and lost them. At least you had them. You know love is.