I think one of the hardest things nobody prepares you for is grieving a life that never actually happened. Not because you didn’t work hard enough. Not because you gave up. Sometimes you can give something everything you have… and it still doesn’t end the way you pictured it. Football was that dream for me. As a little girl, I didn’t imagine fitting football around a full-time job. I imagined football being my job. And I really tried. I moved countries. Played college football in America. Changed clubs. Sat on benches. Got rejected. Started again. Kept believing. For a long time, accepting that the dream had changed felt like admitting I’d failed. But I’m learning those are two very different things. And maybe yours wasn’t football. Maybe it was the career you thought you’d have by now. The relationship you thought would last. The family you imagined. An opportunity you were sure was coming. Or simply the person you thought you’d be by this age. There’s grief in that. And I t...