There are things in my life that are over, decisions that were made years ago, promises I made to myself that I never kept, and conversations I will probably never get to finish. Technically, I don't owe anything on them anymore. Somehow, though, they still collect interest.

I recently came across an idea that I couldn't stop thinking about: ghost debt.

Ghost debt isn't a clinical mental health term. It's simply a metaphor that makes sense to me—the emotional debt left behind by things that are technically in the past but somehow still take something from us in the present. The promises we made ourselves. The things we wish we'd done differently. The words we never said. The people we lost. The version of our life we were absolutely certain we'd be living by now.

And apparently, I have quite the outstanding balance.

When I was younger, I had plans for my life. I'm sure most of us did. You imagine adulthood as if you're placing an order: I'll take this career, this kind of home, these experiences, and this particular version of myself. Thank you very much. I'll pick it up sometime around 30.

Then life hands you an entirely different bag and drives away.

I'm 43 now, and there are promises I made to myself that I haven't fulfilled. I thought I would own a house. I don't. I rent. There were things I was certain I would do, things I was certain I wouldn't do, and versions of adulthood that seemed so obvious to me when I was younger.

Then I actually lived it.

Somewhere along the way, the blueprint changed.

And here's where it gets complicated: I can't simply say I wish I'd followed the original plan, because then I wouldn't have the life I've actually lived.

That's the battle.

The Strange Grief of a Life That Never Happened

There are moments when I wonder where I would be if I'd made different decisions. What would my life look like if I had followed through on every promise I made myself? Where would I live? Who would I know? What would I have accomplished? Who would I be?

But every hypothetical decision changes everything that comes after it.

Pull one thread and the whole damn sweater changes.

That's what makes regret so complicated. We imagine changing one decision while somehow keeping all the beautiful things that came afterward. Life doesn't work that way.

If I had made different choices, I wouldn't simply be a slightly improved version of myself with better finances and a house deed tucked neatly into a filing cabinet. I might have an entirely different life.

Different people. Different memories. Different relationships. Different losses. Different joys.

Maybe better in some ways. Maybe worse in others.

I'll never know.

Yet that doesn't stop my brain from occasionally opening the imaginary alternate-life Zillow listing at 2 a.m.

There is a particular kind of grief in realizing you are no longer young enough to believe every version of your future is still possible. Some doors closed because I chose another door. Others closed because life chose for me. Some probably closed while I stood there debating what the hell I wanted.

And I think part of getting older is learning how to grieve those unlived lives without convincing yourself that the life you actually have was a mistake.

Those are two very different things.

The Promises I Made to Myself

The heaviest ghost debt for me isn't necessarily about other people.

It's the debt I feel like I owe myself.

There were things I promised myself I would do. Places I thought I would be by now. A level of independence I expected to have. A picture in my head of what 43 would look like.

And I'm not living all of it.

Sometimes that creates an uncomfortable question: Did I let myself down?

That's harder to answer than I'd like it to be.

Part of me has that go-get-it mentality. If you want something, do something about it. Stop talking about it. Change it. Build it. Work toward it.

Then another part of me looks backward and realizes that every choice I made put me somewhere. Some choices gave me things I never planned for but couldn't imagine erasing. Some decisions were made by a younger version of me who didn't know what I know now. Some were made because I was doing the best I could with the life sitting in front of me at the time.

So which version gets to judge?

Forty-three-year-old me, with decades of hindsight?

Or the woman who was actually standing there when the decision had to be made?

Hindsight is kind of an asshole that way. It gives you all the answers after the test is over and then acts shocked that you didn't know them beforehand.

Then There Are the People

Not all ghost debt belongs to the life I imagined.

Some of it belongs to people.

There are people I wish I'd said more to. Things I wish I had said differently. Conversations I wish we'd had while there was still time to have them.

There are people I wish I had done more with.

More conversations. More ordinary days. More memories. Maybe just more time.

I don't need to tell every story or name every person for those feelings to be real. Some stories aren't mine alone to share, and some things deserve to stay private.

But I can say this: getting older has made me increasingly aware that people aren't permanent.

The world gets a little lonelier as you lose people.

Sometimes they die. Sometimes relationships end. Sometimes friendships disappear. Sometimes life simply moves two people in opposite directions until one day you realize someone who once occupied an enormous part of your world is now someone you barely know.

And sometimes there is no closure.

There isn't always a final conversation where everyone explains themselves beautifully and walks away healed. Sometimes the last conversation is just the last conversation, and you didn't know it at the time.

That leaves its own kind of debt.

The I should have called.

The I wish I'd told them.

The I wish we'd done that.

The I thought there would be more time.

Those thoughts don't necessarily mean I need to spend my life punishing myself. But pretending they never cross my mind doesn't make them disappear either.

You Can Appreciate Your Life and Still Wonder "What If?"

I think this is the part we don't talk about enough.

We treat appreciation and regret like they're opposites.

If you appreciate parts of your life, you're supposedly not allowed to wonder about another one. If something good came from the choices you've made, you're not supposed to question those choices. If something beautiful eventually came from a difficult road, we're encouraged to rewrite the entire journey as though every part of it was meant to happen exactly that way.

I don't believe life is that tidy.

I can love pieces of my life deeply and still wish other pieces had been different.

I can appreciate where certain decisions led me while acknowledging that other decisions cost me something.

I can wonder who I might have become without wishing away who I am.

Two things can be true at the same time.

Maybe that's what makes ghost debt so difficult to pay off. There isn't always a clean resolution.

Sometimes there isn't an apology coming. Sometimes you can't redo the decision. Sometimes you can't call the person. Sometimes the opportunity really is gone. Sometimes younger you made a promise that present-day you simply cannot—or no longer wants to—keep.

So what do we do with all of that?

Maybe Not Every Debt Needs to Be Paid

I'm starting to wonder whether I've been asking the wrong question.

Maybe I don't need to figure out how to repay every promise I ever made myself.

Maybe I need to decide which ones still belong to me.

The person who created my original life plan didn't know what the next several decades were going to bring. She didn't know who she'd meet, what she'd lose, what she'd survive, what she'd change her mind about, or what would become important to her.

She was allowed to dream.

I'm allowed to revise.

There are probably promises worth picking back up. Things I still genuinely want that I've put aside for too long. If they still matter to me, maybe my age doesn't make them expired. Forty-three isn't a closing argument.

But there may also be promises I can finally stop using as evidence against myself.

Maybe renting instead of owning a house isn't proof that I failed.

Maybe changing direction isn't the same thing as failing myself.

Maybe some goals belonged to a version of me who no longer exists.

And maybe some of my ghost debt can't be paid at all.

Maybe it can only be acknowledged.

I wish I'd said more.

I wish I'd had more time.

I wish I'd chosen differently there.

I wish I'd known then what I know now.

I wish some things had turned out differently.

That's it.

No forced silver lining. No pretending I wouldn't change anything because every single mistake magically made me who I am. There are things I would change if I could.

I just can't.

And maybe accepting that is its own form of closure.

What Ghost Debt Are You Still Carrying?

I don't think I'm going to wake up tomorrow completely free of my what-ifs. I'm probably always going to wonder about certain roads I didn't take and certain conversations I didn't get to finish.

But I don't want to spend the rest of my life paying interest on a past I can't renegotiate.

I'd rather let some of that ghost debt teach me something about the time I still have.

Say the thing while you can.

Make the memory.

Call the person.

Change the thing that still can be changed.

Revisit the promise that still matters.

Release the one that doesn't.

And maybe stop measuring your current life against a blueprint created by someone who hadn't lived it yet.

I'm 43. My life doesn't look like the one I once promised myself.

Some days, that hurts.

Some days, I'm grateful for where the unexpected roads took me.

Most days, if I'm being completely truthful, I feel a little bit of both.

Maybe that's the real messy middle—not pretending we have no regrets, and not allowing those regrets to convince us our entire lives went wrong.

Just learning how to carry what happened, mourn what didn't, and leave enough room for whatever can still happen next.

A Question for You

If you've been carrying your own ghost debt, ask yourself this: Is this something I still want to change, something I need to grieve, or a promise I'm finally allowed to release?

You might be surprised how different those three answers feel.

~Tj🩷