The Life We Never Planned For

There is something strangely comforting about believing you are never going to die.

It is comforting and urgent at the same time.

Comforting because you never have to face old age, sickness, or the question of whether you “made something” of your life.

Urgent because you feel responsible to tell everyone else before it is too late.

I remember living in that space.

We weren’t planning for retirement. It wasn’t even a conversation. It wasn’t that we were told not to plan. It was deeper than that. It just felt unnecessary. Why would you prepare for something that was never going to happen?

We truly believed we would not be here.

And in a way, that belief was freeing.

You didn’t have to chase success in this world. You didn’t have to worry about careers, or climbing ladders, or building something long term. You could just exist. Do enough. Live a simple, even mediocre life, and feel completely justified in it.

Because this wasn’t the real life anyway.

But at the very same time, it was incredibly limiting.

I remember wanting to put more effort into my career. There was a part of me that wanted to grow, build something, see what I was capable of. But the pull toward the ministry was so strong.

It wasn’t optional. It felt like a responsibility.

I believed I needed to tell people what was coming. That if I didn’t, I would be bloodguilty. That is a heavy burden to carry. It creates this constant tension between what you might want for your life and what you feel you are required to do.

So you choose what feels eternal over what feels temporary.

Every time.

My husband felt it too. He always wanted a career. But instead, he took jobs that were just good enough to get us by. Because why build something long term in a world that wasn’t supposed to last?

At the same time, there was this constant edge we lived on.

Always waiting.

Always watching.

Always feeling like something was about to happen.

It’s hard to explain what that does to your sense of time.

You don’t put roots down. Some people don’t even buy homes. They rent forever. Why invest in something permanent when permanence isn’t the plan?

And then one day nothing happens.

Years pass.

Decades pass.

And suddenly, it hits you like a wave.

Oh.

We’re still here.

That realization has been very recent for us. Retirement wasn’t something we slowly planned toward. It showed up all at once, like a problem we forgot to solve.

Oh crap. We haven’t planned for this.

And we’re not the only ones. The baby boomer generation is feeling this in a big way right now. People who truly believed they would never grow old are now old. And many of them are unprepared. Financially, emotionally, practically.

Some are now relying on family members they once distanced themselves from or even shunned. And sometimes, those are the only people left.

That reality is heavy.

And then there’s the part that hurts even more for me.

Our kids.

My kids didn’t think they would graduate high school. That was the environment they were raised in. And now, looking back, I feel a deep regret not giving them more options. Not encouraging college, or at least leaving that door open.

Not because college is the only path.

But because they deserved the choice.

They also lived with that same edge. That same fear. Waiting for Armageddon.

And as an adult, you can try to make sense of that.

As a child, it’s just scary.

The impact of all of this is not something that ends when you leave.

It’s ongoing. It shows up in finances, in missed opportunities, in the way you think about the future, and even in the way your body holds urgency and fear.

It changes how you relate to time itself.

Because when you were taught there would be no future, you never learned how to build one.

And for a while, all we could see was what we lost.

27 years.

That number feels heavy. It’s easy to look at it and think we are behind. That we have to hustle now. That we have to make up for lost time. That we need to build enough so we don’t become a burden to our kids one day.

That pressure is real.

But something has started to shift.

Because for the first time, we are not living on the edge waiting for something to happen.

We are here.

In this life.

With time in front of us.

And instead of asking, “What’s the point?”

We get to ask, “What do we want to build?”

That question is new.

It’s uncomfortable sometimes. There’s grief in it. There’s fear in it. And yes, there is urgency. But it’s a different kind of urgency now. Not fear based. Not driven by an ending.

It’s the kind of urgency that comes from realizing life is actually happening.

We didn’t learn how to plan for the future.

So now, we are learning.

We didn’t build long term before.

So now, we are building.

Not from panic.

Not from trying to fix everything all at once.

But from a place of finally being allowed to have a future.

And maybe we are not as behind as it feels.

Maybe we are just… starting later than we expected.

And starting still counts