I ran across this really great thing, it’s an essay called “Welcome to Holland”. It was written by a parent of a special needs kid and coping with that was the motivation behind the essay, but really it applies to any time in which you need to accept the reality of your life being different than you planned/dreamed.
It’s a simple story, you have dreamed of going on vacation in Italy. You’ve been planning the trip for ages, you bought all the tickets, you packed your bags, and the time has come to get on that flight! ...but when the flight lands, the attendant says “Welcome to Holland!”. You were not planning on going to Holland, you bought a ticket for Italy. But that airplane isn’t getting back in the air to take you to Italy. You exit the plane, you are in Holland.
Holland isn’t awful, it’s got it’s own kind of charm. So you can sit and mope about not being in Italy, or you can explore Holland. “if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.”