I am grieving versions of my life that never happened and there is nowhere obvious to put that grief

Dear Delyara, No funeral. No ritual. No socially sanctioned language for it. Just private mourning for futures that closed quietly — the relationship that might have deepened and didn’t, the career that might have become more, the easier body I thought I’d still be living in, the steadier self I imagined adulthood would produce, the freedom I thought would arrive once I had “worked hard enough.” That grief is hard to explain because nothing visible necessarily died. And yet something did. Potential. Possibility. The version of me that used to assume life might open rather than narrow. I carry that grief privately while making dinner, answering emails, looking normal enough to pass. I don’t think I’m the only woman doing that. I do think it is lonelier than people know.