An old friend found me on facebook recently. We began talking about old friends and old loves from back in the day. She was telling me about the one that got away, my friend Roger. I reminded her of how she loved him but was afraid to show her feelings because he was a white dude and her friends didn't approve of him, and how she was nice to him in private but avoided him in public (yes, we were in high school).
She said he was the only guy she was attracted to, who treated her right, and she let him slip through her fingers. She said that future relationships failed because all other guys fell short in comparison to the way Roger treated her. She never did get her high school diploma, and she has 4 kids she had to raise by herself. All are grown and out the door and they don't speak to her.
I didn't tell her that Roger went on to marry a beautiful black woman and they're having a great life, and she's a cardiologist and he's a chemical engineer, with 3 beautiful kids, and 2 grandchildren.
"& what did you learn from that experience?" I asked her.
She didn't respond. Roger was crazy about her. The three of us used to study together. She was terrible at algebra and geometry. He used to do her math homework for her, and he even tried to tutor her.
I remember the day he and I was in school and he said hello to her in the hallway on the way to our class, and she snivelled her nose up at him as if he smelled.
I asked her again, "what did you learn from that experience?"
No response.
Then without thinking, I said, "If you'd tried to reach the one you loved just a little bit more, when you almost had them, your life would've been completely different."
and then I wondered if I was also talking about me.
5 comments:
I'm sure we've all got one that we let slip away.
I know I think about mine all the time....and what did I learn?!?
Well, I've been married for more than 21 years......and I love her dearly; but we all spend at least some time thinking about the one....or ones that got away. That's human nature I suppose.
Yesh, I suppose you're right.
Until recently, I never looked back. I do my best to live in the here & now, & honor the decisions that got me to this present place, b/c to regret the things that we can't change seems a hopeless enterprise.
However, two weeks ago I ran into someone I "loved" from back in duh day who'd once completely ROCKED my romantic world & even made me consider our future together in a real way. Staring back at that face, it made me go inward, imagine & romanticize all kinds of scenarios that MIGHT have been.
But things didn't work out that way. Life obviously had other plans us. I don't think we were BOTH in the same head-space at the same time. That's very important, or else you set each other up for failure & heartbreak.
Wouldn't say either of us 'slipped thru our the other's fingers'... but maybe we slipped thru that small window in time when the two of us being together for the long haul was a beautiful possibility.
The reality is: Life eventually gives us the people, the emotions & the situations that we get.
One.
@ moanerplicity, you are so right. The town my mom lives in is small, and when i visit her I am always running into someone I liked alot (or loved). They look almost as old as my mom now. They've obviously had bad lives. One still works at the restaurants I worked at when I was in high school. They look completely unrecognizeable. I am so glad we never stayed together.
LOL. Life w/ its stresses, strains, hardships & bad habits can be really rough on some people, man. & it can age your face like an old weathered catcher's mitt.
That's the thing that's often disappointing about looking backward: people who held our fascination have the nerve of change on us! They get older, fatter, grayer, slower, & betray our memories of them. It ain't right, yo!
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