The Unborn
When grief isn’t about what we’ve lost, but what we never had the chance to create.
Is heartbreak a heartbreak of losing our own creation — something that never was? But then, how can we grieve something that wasn’t real? How is it that we always grieve the unborn, and that sometimes it pains us more than what truly was?
The ordinary lived realities, with all their disappointments and imperfections, seem so much easier to let go of than the fantasies that never came true — the fantasies of the perfect life that never was.
In this realm, can we ever be truly fulfilled? If the life we crave doesn’t exist, and hasn’t been invented yet. If the product of our imagination is just that — a figment that dies before it is even born?
If the life we crave does not exist, and perhaps cannot exist, then what exactly are we reaching for? What we long for often lives only in the mind — something that dissolves before it can take form.
Can we ever be satisfied and find peace and meaning in human bonds? Or does our only true bond lie within ourselves? Are we, in some sense, our own soulmates?
Is loneliness even real, if what we crave does not exist? If reality can never be enough, and only unreality can satisfy — are we lonely, or do we simply exist?
But then, why does existing within these imagined spaces feel so exhilarating, yet still painful? Perhaps because, even while experiencing it, we remain aware of its fleeting non-existence. Imagination becomes a kind of painful paradox — both necessary to our survival, and yet our most cunning threat. The one that cuts deepest.
Enjoying life to its fullest — what does that even mean?
Each to their own, and yet every person seems to repeat a similar script. A familiar notion passed down by someone who was told, by someone who was told before. Inherited, rarely questioned.
And yet, have we ever been taught the opposite? Encouraged to find what it means for ourselves, by ourselves? To look beyond the ordinary — beyond friendships and travel, beyond even films, theatre, and books? Beyond helping others, and beyond self-help?
See what remains — what is truly profound. Even if it’s pure nihilism, an emptiness that aches to be filled. To feel that, to allow yourself to feel it fully, and once felt, to look even deeper — that is the true power, the bravery, and the essence of who you are.
Because you are not your friendships. You are not your misfortunes, or your vivid world travels. Those are embellishments — stories you tell. They do not define you; they are simply your chosen ways of experiencing the world.
Who you truly are is still open to interpretation. Like a film or a book with an ambiguous ending, a blank canvas not yet explored. Everyone will experience you differently, storytelling your existence in their own way.
Unless you truly grow into yourself.
Unless you really know who you are.