I never got a Ph.D. I never became a school chaplain. The life I planned is not, in many ways, the life I got. There are other losses too. I shared unrealized dreams in a recent essay about entering my 40s, and many readers responded, “It’s not too late. You can still do those things.” I understood what they meant, but over time, what I first experienced as loss has become an acknowledgment of limits. I couldn’t do everything. Some doors had to close for others to remain open. It still feels like a loss sometimes, yet the limits of the past few decades have helped shape this life I love.
This week on the podcast, I talked with my friend Karen Swallow Prior about her experience of childlessness and the ways we all have lives that don’t unfold exactly as we imagined. How do we face the losses of the past while remaining open to the unexpected possibilities that can emerge alongside them? Here are some of Karen’s insights…
1. Our Attention Shapes Our Expectations
Karen says that “we carry around in our head this picture of what family should look like, what children should look like, what our career path and success will look like.” These assumptions are often formed by “the movies and the commercials and the myths that surround us… often more than the reality that’s next to us living and breathing.” In a world crowded with distorted images of what a good life is supposed to look like, paying attention to the reality right in front of us helps us discover forms of belonging and purpose that our culture has taught us to overlook.
2. We Need Bigger Imaginations About Family and Belonging.
Communities, institutions, and churches need to make room for many different ways of living and contributing. Whether experiencing infertility, disability, singleness, aging, or other circumstances, people flourish when belonging is not limited to one narrow vision of the “normal” life.
There’s more in the episode: The Life You Planned vs. the Life You Got
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Amy Julia Becker desires to challenge assumptions about the good life, proclaim the inherent belovedness of every human being, and help us envision and build a world of belonging where everyone matters. Amy Julia invites people to reimagine the good life through her writing and speaking on disability, faith, and culture. She is the author of several books, including To Be Made Well, White Picket Fences, Small Talk, and A Good and Perfect Gift. She is a guest opinion writer for national publications and hosts two podcasts: Take the Next Step and Reimagining the Good Life. Becker is a graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv). She is a member of the Disability Ministry Network and the Alliance for Disability Justice and Ethics in Reproductive Genetics. She lives with her husband and their three children in western Connecticut.
