where i thought i would be
“There is a space between imagination and attainment that may only be traversed by longing.” ― Khalil Gibran
Hello June and hello readers. Peace and blessings. Coming up we have our free monthly writing workshop this Friday, June 5 at 7 pm et. You can register here to join us. I’ll be posting the June prompt list tomorrow. You can find the rest of my June workshops at the bottom of this post.
Story Work Exercise
Our current theme is desire and devotion. Most story work exercises are open to everyone for one week, before they are paywalled for paid subscribers. You can find our most recent themes here. You can find all the archives here. You can purchase a copy of my book, Story Work, here.
Sometimes I long for an unrealized life. I lay in bed looking at houses I’m in no position to buy. I go on Pinterest and collect images of how I will decorate the rooms, what my office will look like, what my closet and wardrobe will feel like. I visualize the life I thought I would be living at this age. The life I am still dreaming into.
I also go backwards. I daydream about a sister life that I didn’t live. I don’t wish for different circumstances or characters in my story, but for a life where better decisions were made with the circumstances presented. A life where, yes, maybe my mother had schizophrenia but she was willing to get help and we as a family rallied together to support her. A life where I was taught to say the thing rather than avoid the thing, a strength that I would have carried into my adult life and saved me lots of grief.
Where would I be if I always knew what I know now?
I long for the otherwise. Sometimes.
At 48, I am no stranger to longing. And I often wonder if it’s healthy. I feel guilty—am I being ungrateful for the life I have? Because I know I am blessed beyond measure. I should stay present, right? Be here now. Don’t live in regret by yearning for what’s not. And yet…
There are longings I’m still finding the words for. Parts of myself and life that I haven’t gotten to know yet. Desires that have felt so close for so long but still somehow far enough away that I don’t know if I will ever reach them.
These longings can be taunting, whispering that I started too late, there isn’t enough time, and what’s meant for me won’t find me.
But I whisper back: My story is still being written.
I imagine versions of myself at all different ages and places, living out alternate timelines, pathways, and decisions. Even if they’re in my head, these inner stories are like a rehearsal space for becoming. An approach to story work that has an expansive, life-giving effect.
Time and again, having a creative vision for my life has saved me from hopelessness. Whether I’m looking to the past, present, or future, working with fact or fiction, the aspirational stories I carry keep the vision of what’s possible close at hand.
And I’ve learned that longing for a different life can exist alongside gratitude for the life I’m living.
Longing has deepened my devotion to the unique twists and turns of my journey. I realize that romanticizing a fantasy version of myself is fine for stretching my mind beyond its limitations, but it chronicles a version of me who arrived on this earth already knowing everything she needed to know, already wise and evolved. Someone who bypassed the very experiences that shaped her journey. And growth doesn’t happen that way.
The things I wish had happened differently are part of my soul’s evolution. If those exact struggles hadn’t occurred, some other form of learning would have found me.
Maybe longing is not something we need to feel guilty or frustrated about. Maybe it’s an invitation that we can only accept when our consciousness is expanded enough.
What if longing is a more layered, more mysterious form of desire?
Think of it this way: If desire has a clear target or direction, then longing is reaching for something more complex than the thing itself. If desire is a craving for a specific thing, then longing is a craving for the way we think that thing will make us feel. So maybe I desire the dream house, but what I long for is the sense of rootedness, independence, peace, or freedom that the dream house represents for me.
Longing lives in the space between what is and what could be, making it a rich source of creative material, too. In a good story, a character needs or wants something, longs for something that they have to transform in some way to attain. Longing brings tension, mystery, contradiction, disruption, and risk—all things that complex characters like you and me navigate in our everyday efforts to live inspired lives.
Longing can point us to questions and conflicts that shape our lives and creative projects. Revealing what feels unfinished, what we’re searching for, and what we fear we may never have.
How about exploring this for yourself?
What do your secret longings reveal about the life you want to live?
Do you ever escape your life by imagining another version of it? Does this imagining feel inspiring, painful, comforting, or something else perhaps?
What parts of that imagined self are still available to you today? What choices are still within your control?
How can you begin embodying the version of yourself that you long for, now, within the life you already have?
Write a story about an alternate path your life did not take. In what ways might that imagined story illuminate or rejuvenate the life you are currently living?
upcoming workshops
Here are upcoming opportunities to write or work with me. My next intensive will be Creative Courage, and registration will open soon. To receive updates on my upcoming intensives and coaching programs, you can sign up for my offerings newsletter here.
June 5. Free Monthly Writing the Layers Workshop // 7-8 pm et
June 7. Writing with Vulnerability and Creative Courage via Writing Workshops // 3-6 pm et
June 14. Memoir Journaling Techniques (Part Two) // (free for paid subscribers and Inner Story members)
July 12. Writing about Family: Finding Themes, Angles, and Meaning via Writing Workshops // 3-6 pm et
In my most recent book, Story Work: Field Notes on Self-Discovery and Reclaiming Your Narrative, I write about a defeated narrative I’ve carried for most of my life: The belief that my mental health and sensitivity made me broken, destined to struggle no matter how hard I tried. Reclaiming that narrative is not a one-time breakthrough—it’s a lifelong practice. Part-memoir, part-guide, Story Work is about reclaiming the power to shape your own story, using writing to turn limitations into creative vision, as I did with my own. You can purchase a copy here, here, or wherever you get your books. I’m available for talks and book clubs. If you’ve read the book, it would be so appreciated if you would leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Thank you for the support!
This is a really thought-provoking piece. So much of it resonated deeply with me, and I think this is true for most every human being (probably all of us).
I wish I had sisters and parents who accepted me for who I am. I wish I handled it differently/better when they didn’t, but I didn’t yet have the skill set for that. I love these two sentences:
“The things I wish had happened differently are part of my soul’s evolution. If those exact struggles hadn’t occurred, some other form of learning would have found me.”
And while I still wish there hadn’t been so much pain, the person I became because of it is amazing.
So many synchronicities in this post! I started morning pages early this morning, and ended up writing almost until lunch, pondering the many things I've been prone to regret and reimagining them as portals to new iterations of my work (and myself). Kinda reminds me of what Howard Thurman described as "the ministry of unfulfillment."