When Life Doesn't Turn Out The Way You Imagined

Journalist and broadcaster Bibi Lynch recently published an article taking stock of her life after she turned 60 - a bit of midlife reflection, if you like. She had no partner. No children. No home of her own. “On paper,” she wrote, “it might look like a failure.”

And I felt a flutter of something like anxiety ripple across my stomach. Not because her life is a failure, but because so many of us carry around an invisible piece of paper like that. A quiet ledger of how we thought things might unfold. And we judge ourselves on how well we're measuring up to that expectation.

We don’t often say it out loud, but it’s there.

The career that veered off course. A divorce you never imagined having, and a life rebuilt from pieces you didn’t choose. A body that no longer behaves as it once did. Children who have grown and flown… and taken more distance than you imagined they would. A family dynamic that shifted, leaving you feeling slightly on the outside of something you once belonged to. A faith that crumbled in the face of science and reason and... well... basic humanity.

The version of ourselves we imagined we’d become by now.

These are not the losses we announce. But they shape us just the same.

I noticed, reading Bibi's story, a small, uncomfortable voice in me whispering: Yes, but you have been luckier than this. You have the long marriage. You have your beautiful home. You have your children.

And I do. I know that. I’m deeply grateful for it.

There are moments - out on the water, the dogs stretched out beside us, the shoreline slipping quietly past - when everything feels whole and exactly as it should be. And then, just as quietly, something tender - some loss that hides in the shadows of my subconsciousness - will catch me unawares.

But life, I am learning, doesn’t divide neatly into gratitude and grieving. It is entirely possible to hold both: to feel thankful for what is still here, and to feel the quiet ache of what has changed shape along the way.

In my work as a humanist celebrant, I sit with people at all stages of life. And one thing I’ve learned is this: there is no such thing as a life that unfolds exactly as planned.

Not one.

And yet, we’re so quick to measure ourselves against a template that was never designed to hold the full complexity of being human.

What moved me about Bibi's story wasn’t the list of what she didn’t have. It was what she did with that list. She didn’t pretend the losses weren’t real. She didn’t wrap them up in neat, shiny optimism. She let the truth be the truth. But then, slowly, she began to ask a different question:

What if this isn’t the only way to read my life?

What if a life without a fixed home is also a life of movement and adaptability?

What if a life without a long-term partner is also a life rich in friendship and independence?

What if a life without children is also a life that has found other ways to care, to connect, to love?

Not better. Not worse. Just… different.

And perhaps more importantly, not finished.

When she turned 60, a quietly urgent question began whispering in her ear:

If not now, when?

Not in a frantic, panicked way. But in a steady, clear-eyed one.

If she’s going to write the book, take the risk, allow the joy - it has to be now.

I see this shift often, particularly in the stories I help to tell. There comes a point where the narrative changes. Where we stop asking, “Did my life turn out the way it should have?” and start asking, “Given everything, what do I want to do with what remains?”

It’s a subtle change. But it changes everything. Because it moves us from judgement to authorship. From being the subject of the story to becoming the storyteller.

And here’s the part I find most hopeful. Nothing in Bibi's external circumstances had changed. There was no sudden love story. No miraculous windfall. No neat resolution.

Only the way she chose to see it.

Turning 60 didn't tip her into despair. Instead it sharpened her focus. It softened her judgement of herself. And it pushed her to reframe her life with compassion.

A friend told her her life was “spectacular.”

She didn’t believe it at first. Of course she didn’t. All she saw was what she'd failed to achieve.

But she let the possibility sit beside her for a while. And gradually, gently, she began to lean into it. Not because everything was perfect. But because it was hers.

There are chapters in our lives where we don’t get the resolution we hoped for. Where relationships shift, or loosen, or fall into silence for a while. Where we are required - quietly, painfully - to let go of being fully known or fully understood by the people we expected it from. Where circumstances - a bump in the road of our finances or career, a diagnosis we weren't expecting - shift.

And still, the story goes on.

So whatever stage of life you're at, if you find yourself looking at your own piece of paper and thinking, This isn’t how it was meant to be... perhaps there is another way of reading it. Not to erase the disappointments. Not to deny the ache. But to widen the lens just enough to let in something else as well. The recognition that resilience, unexpected turns in the road, quiet courage, moments of connection - even the love that's changed shape but hasn't disappeared completely - count. They might not measure up to whatever expectations you had back before life got in the way, but that doesn't make them any less real. Any less worth honouring.

Your story isn't done. It's still unfolding.

And if not now… when?

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