The One that Got Away

It is odd looking back, wondering what if things would have been different. What if she had chosen to say yes, instead of saying no? What if love had ever had the least chance to develop, instead of turning into dust, into vapor, floating far far away? Alas, time moves on, years pass, trying to find new friends, new relationships; yet your mind wonders, what if? What are they doing now? Does she ever even think about me? Does she wonder what I am doing or could she care less?

I think about trying to make contact sometimes, but I wasn’t the one who ceased our friendship, who ceased communication. I did have to completely cut her from my life. Why? It was just too much, too torturous to see someone you were once so close to ignore you. To know you tried to be friends, but you were not the one who rejected her, she was the one who rejected you.

I try to convince myself that if I tried to reinitiate a friendship years later that it would be just for that, friendship; but a sneaking part of me still thinks, years later, perhaps I still want more, still desire a relationship. However, we are two different people now, with years of separate experiences between us, dividing us, putting distance between us. I feel if I tried to reconnect, with the shortening of that distance, a lot of questions, a lot of feeling and doubts would only resurface.

I might feel that rejection all over again, rush over me like a deep dark sludge, sticking to the crevices of my mind, reminding me of how I felt back then. Reminding me of how I don’t want to feel that way again. Reminding me how I don’t want to give anyone the power to make me feel that way, so small and insignificant, like we had never been close at all.

Who knows, maybe it was hard for her too, just so hard we couldn’t be friends. Maybe too confusing. Maybe I look back so much because I don’t have anything at the moment to propel me forward, to start my momentum and vision in a more hopeful manner and future direction. Oh, how long we can spend staring into the past, wondering, brooding, being consumed by who we were, by how we were treated. However, the past is previous, the present is now, and the future is what we make it. Shall our futures be riddled day after day with the thoughts of the past, with things we cannot ever change?

Perhaps the one that got away is not the one is the past, but the one in the present, and in the future, the ones we keep missing because we are too blind, too stuck in our old ways to see new potential, to make changes, to takes risks. Perhaps, because we let fear and rejection blind us, we cannot see the great potentials that our right in front of our faces. Yes, maybe it was not she in the past who got away, but the ones right now who are getting away, every time we let the past define us, instead of defining ourselves in the present, thus redefining our self in the future.

I want to move on. I have tried, but with every new rejection, my resolve lessens, my confidence wanes, and depression once again knocks at my door, pounding louder and louder. And yet, if I never try again, I will never find the hope; never find the confidence to open up to someone again. I must press forward, must make a change, and must get unstuck from my complacency.

Now is the time.

~ Daniel