The One That Got Away

They touch all aspects of our lives. These people that we've known and loved before. They are here to help us learn and grow, to challenge us, to make us face our wounds, to teach us to forgive. They are our parents, our siblings, our friends and lovers, our children. They are our bosses and our co-workers.

They are our soul mates.

But there are some that just brush the edges of our lives. They are the ones we could have loved if we had the chance. They are the ones that got away.


You wrote me letters when I was 14 and poems when I was 15.


You held my hand when I was 16.


You hugged me when I cried when I was 20.

When I was 25, you played a game of cribbage with me.

You sat beside me on an airplane when I was 30.

You laughed with me when I was 35 and when I was 38, you danced with me under the stars. 

You had a drink with me in a bar when I was 40.

I bumped into you at the grocery store.

I walked on the beach beside you.

I laughed at your joke.

I listened to your story.

Our eyes met and instantly our hearts connected. In that moment we shared a lifetime full of memories, what once was. In that moment we loved completely.

You might have been in my life for a minute, an hour, a day, a week or even a month. And then you were gone. The connection broken, the memories dissolving into mist in my mind.

I'm left wondering who you were and why did you matter so much. I wonder if I imagined it, that tenuous connection. I ache to know more. I hunger for a glimpse of your smile.

But it's gone. It's over. Life moves on, pulling us in different directions.

I know I'll never see you again. Not in this lifetime.

I can wait. Maybe in the next lifetime or the one after that we'll come together again. I'll get the chance to know you again.

Someday.

The ties that bind hearts together can not be undone by time or space or lifetimes.