When I was younger, I imagined myself married by thirty, raising two children, and living in a home filled with the beautiful chaos of family life.
I imagined birthday parties, school mornings, family vacations, and a husband who would reach for my hand without being asked.
Instead, I had a mortgage, a steady job, a man I loved, and a quiet sadness I rarely admitted to anyone.
Children were no longer an option for me, at least not in the way I had once imagined. I had spent years making peace with that reality, although some days it still hurt more than I wanted to admit.
I told myself that life could be beautiful in other ways.
I told myself that love mattered more than the plans I had made when I was twenty.
And I genuinely believed that I had found the person with whom I could build that different kind of life.
