The One Who Got Away

Who is this, the one that got away? I guess it’s the perfect person with whom everything was great everything was perfect but the timing was just wrong. There was no fault in the person, there was no flaw in the chemistry but the cards don’t fall the right way, I suppose.

I believe in the fact that ending up with someone, finding a longtime partner that is, does not lie merely in the other person. I can actually argue that an equal part or maybe even the greater part has to do with the matter of living. It has to do with you being ready to settle down and commit to someone in a way that goes beyond the little niceties of giddy romance.

How often have you gone through it without even realizing it? When you’re not ready to commit in a mature manner, it doesn’t matter who you’re with, it just doesn’t work. Small problems become big, inconsequential become deal breakers simply because you’re not ready and it shows. It’s not that you and the person are no good; it’s just not yet right and little things become the flashpoint of that fact.

Then one day you’re ready. You really are and when this happens, you’ll be ready to settle down with someone. He or she may not e the most perfect, they might not the be brightest star of romance to ever have burned in your life but it’ll work because you are ready. It will make sense, it really will.

So that day comes when you’re finally making sense of and you find yourself to be a different person. Things are different, your approach is different, you finally understand who you are and what you want. You’ve become ready because the time has truly arrived. Mind you, there’s no telling when this day will come. Hopefully you’re single but you could be in a long term relationship, could be married with three kids, it doesn’t matter. All you know is that you’ve changed and for some reason, the one that got away is the first person you think about.

You’ll think about him or her because you’ll wonder, “what if he/ she was here today? What if we were together now, with me as I am and not as I was?” The biggest what if? you’ll have in your life.

If you’re married, you just have to accept the fact that the one that got away, got away. Believe me, no matter how fairy tale you think your marriage is, this can happen to the best of us. But hopefully, you’re mature enough to realize that you’re already committed with the one you are with and this is just another test of your commitment, one that will strengthen your marriage when you get past it. Sure, you’ll think about hi or her but it’s never nice to live with “what might have been”.

Maybe the one that got away is the one who’s already married. In which case, it is the same thing. You just have to accept and know that your memories of that person will bring a nice little smile to your lips in the future when you’re old, with gray strands and reminiscing.

But if neither of that is the case, then it’s different. What do you do if it’s not yet too late. Simple, find him or her. The very existence of the line “one that got away” means that you’ll always wonder, what if you got that one?

Ask him out to coffee and ask her out to a movie. It doesn’t matter if you’ve dropped in from out of nowhere. You’d be surprised , you juts might be the “one that got away: as well for the person who is you “the one that got away.”

It won’t make a difference. If the timing is finally right, it’ll all just fall into place somehow and you know. I’m thinking, it would be a great feeling in the end, to be able to say to someone. “Hey, you’re the one that ALMOST got away.”