Unfulfilled Promise: The Space Between the Dream and the Life I’m Actually Building

The most profound grief is not for a thing, but for a promise. Specifically, the unfulfilled promise that shaped decades of my decisions. The promise that if I worked hard, got educated, and built a respectable life, I would earn my way to safety, partnership, and a family. It was a contract I signed in my soul, but the other party—be it society, fate, or the systems in place—never honoured its side.

For years, I thought my sadness was about the children I didn’t have. I’ve since realised it’s about the unfulfilled promise of a life structure that was supposed to make having them possible. It was the promise of a partnership that would be a true alliance against poverty. The promise that my degree would be a key to financial freedom, not a ticket to a glass ceiling. The unfulfilled promise turned my striving into a long walk towards a mirage.

This left me in a strange, silent space: the aftermath of a broken contract. What do you build when the blueprint you were given is proven false?

The ‘What If’ That Isn’t Greed

People often mistake this longing for materialism. They see me look at a big house with an Aga and think it’s about luxury. It’s not. It’s about a specific quality of life that was always part of the unfulfilled promise—a space of safety, warmth, and uncluttered peace. A sanctuary. When the primary promise (of family) evaporated, these secondary desires came into sharp, clear focus. They are not replacements; they are the tangible components of the sovereign life I must now build for myself, from scratch.

The vision isn’t greed; it’s specificity. It’s moving from the vague dream of “a better life” to the sovereign demand for “a debt-free home, with light, space, and a quiet heart.”

The Mockery and the Mirror

Navigating this loss is isolating, made worse by a world that doesn’t know how to hold this kind of grief. The unfulfilled promise is often met with minimising logic (“children are hard work!”), cruel mockery, or accusations of taking the “easy route.”

I’ve learned their responses say more about their own limitations than my loss. Their inability to sit with my unfulfilled promise is their failure of imagination, not my failure to “get over it.” My boundary now is clear: I will not allow my sacred grief to be debated in the court of someone else’s comfort.

From Victim to Author: Reclaiming the Narrative

So, where do you go when the promise is broken? You stop being a character in that old story and become the author of a new one.

I am not building my business, my podcasts (Empowerment Diaries, Sovren Spotlight), or my brand (Lita, Goddess of Growth) to replace the unfulfilled promise. That is impossible. I am building them because the collapse of that promise revealed my own inherent creative power. I am channelling the energy that was meant for building a family into the act of building a sovereign self.

This is the shift: from seeking a partner to create a life with, to realising I am the source of creation. The sanctuary, the legacy, the community—it all emanates from my own authority.

The Sovereign In-Between

This is not a triumphant “after” picture. I am in the in-between. The space between the dismantled dream and the fully realised sovereign life. Some call this a Saturn transit through the 12th House—a period of dissolving delusion. I call it the necessary wilderness.

Here, I am:

• Creating for the sake of creating. Not for a payout, but to honour the creative impulse that remains my core truth.
• Leaning into faith, not fear. Trusting that building what I love is the path, even without a guaranteed map.
• Learning that sovereignty isn’t about doing it all alone, but about being the ultimate authority who chooses my supports and designs my structure.

The unfulfilled promise is not my destination. It was the end of one road. I am now laying the bricks for another, with a clearer, fiercer heart. This is my own path to a life of sovereignty. And it is built, brick by brick, in the space between the promise and the power.

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