Such is my experience - not that I ever mourned the loss of a child, but that I consider myself as lost!

The Stranger in Your Own Life

Most of us think of loss in neat categories: losing someone we love, losing a job, losing our way. But Sampson touches on something rawer—the disorientation of becoming someone different than you expected to be. When life forces you off your planned path, the grief isn't always about what's gone. It's about realizing you're not the person you thought you'd be, and that realization can feel like losing yourself.

This hits differently in our current moment. We're often told to "reinvent yourself" or "embrace change" as though it's always exciting. But there's a real mourning that happens when circumstances—health, economics, relationships, just plain timing—reroute you from what felt inevitable. You're still here. The people you love might still be here. Yet something essential feels absent: the continuity of your own identity.

What makes this observation so sharp is that it reframes loss entirely. We don't always need to be devastated by external events. Sometimes the hardest part is looking in the mirror and not quite recognizing who's looking back. That disorientation, that sense of being a stranger to your own life—that's a legitimate grief. And naming it, rather than dismissing it, is often what lets us eventually find our footing again.