There are losses we can name—clear, defined, understood by others. A loved one. A job. A relationship. And then there are the quieter ones. The invisible griefs. The dreams that never came to pass. The versions of ourselves that no longer exist. The futures we imagined, mourned silently, and buried alone.

This is the grief of what wasn’t.

We don’t talk about these losses enough. They rarely come with condolences or rituals. There’s no funeral for the job you almost got, the friendship that faded, or the part of you that dimmed over time. Yet, these moments sit with us. They weigh on our hearts and shape the way we move forward, even when no one else sees them.

The Grief With No Language

There’s a peculiar ache that lives in the gap between what we hoped for and what
actually happened. It might be the child you thought you’d have by now. The career path you envisioned at 23 that didn’t quite unfold the way you imagined. The version of yourself that was bolder, freer, softer—before life asked you to grow up too fast, to protect too soon.

Sometimes, the loss is not even from a tangible event, but from a slow realisation:
“I am not who I thought I’d be.”
And that sentence? That quiet reckoning? It holds a kind of grief that’s just as sacred as any other.

But because these losses are unseen, we often don’t give ourselves permission to
grieve them. We dismiss our pain, compare it to others, and swallow it down with
shame. We call it being dramatic. Overreacting. Ungrateful. We tell ourselves to move on—but grief doesn’t work that way, especially when it’s unacknowledged.

Naming the Invisible

Part of healing is naming what hurts. Speaking the unspeakable. Holding up a mirror to
the quiet corners of ourselves that still long, still ache, still wonder, “What if?”

This kind of grief deserves space, too.

It’s okay to feel heartache for the life that didn’t happen. To miss the person you
could’ve become had the circumstances been kinder. To feel loss over the story you wrote in your mind, that reality didn’t honour. It doesn’t make you weak or broken. It makes you human.

And when we give ourselves space to honour those hidden heartbreaks, something incredible happens—we reclaim our narrative. We begin to understand that grieving doesn’t mean we’re stuck in the past. It means we are acknowledging it, giving it the tenderness it was denied, and allowing ourselves to integrate it so we can keep moving.

Mid-Year, Mid-Journey

June is the halfway point—a natural pause. It’s a time when many of us quietly reflect: Where am I? What have I become? What did I leave behind without realising?

It’s also the perfect moment to ask: What grief have I been carrying without naming? What dreams have I buried without mourning? What parts of me need to be honoured, even if they didn’t get to stay?

Grief, in all its forms, deserves ritual. It doesn’t have to be grand. It can be writing a letter to the version of you that never got to bloom. Lighting a candle for a closed door. Speaking aloud the thing you never told anyone you lost. Grief softens when witnessed, even if it’s only by you.

Healing Without Closure

There is no closure for some grief. There is only acceptance and gentle integration. We
carry them with us, not as open wounds, but as softened truths.

You can make peace with what wasn’t without invalidating what is. You can miss the life
that didn’t happen and still honour the one you’re living. Both can be true.

This isn’t about clinging to pain—it’s about holding space. It’s about letting grief breathe
so it doesn’t build walls inside of you. It’s about saying: This mattered. Even if no one else saw it. Even if it never happened. It mattered.

And so do you.

Written by Sarah Banda
Blogger @Poemstellium
Instagram @sarah.banda_
Twitter @iam_sarahb_