The One Who Got Away

I suspect that every person over the age of 40 has one. The person you didn’t appreciate until it was too late, or the one you were too immature to love. Memories tinged with regret over what might have been.

But what happens when the one who got away is standing right in front of you? When it’s more a case of not having met at the right time in either life?

Before I talk about that, I have to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, I believed in the idea of “soul mates.” Having been reared on a steady diet of fairy tales and Barbara Cartland romance novels, I was certain that my prince would come, and that we would live happily ever after. (Since my mother had been married multiple times, I’m not sure why I believed in this possibility, but, with the hubris of youth, I knew that my Beautiful Life would be nothing like hers.)

And come he did. Like most people, I had a few false starts. And then P. and I, who had been friends since high school, discovered one another in a new way. It wasn't long before I was convinced that he was The One.

Once the connection was made, the sparks flew between us. He was gentle, sensitive, and had the added attraction of thinking that I was brilliant and that I could hang the moon if I wanted to. I knew that we were soul mates because we were in almost perfect sync in every way that really counted—except one.

He was gay.

I had some inkling before we got married that this was the case. He told me that he had experimented, but that it had been a “phase.” I was young, naïve, and in love. There was nothing in my life experience that could have helped me make sense of his admission, and he seemed as much in love with me as I was with him. And so we blithely marched down the aisle. I cannot say what he was thinking, but, in true Pollyanna fashion, I believed that love would conquer all.

You can guess what happened.

During the course of our 5-year marriage, he had affairs with a number of men. Looking back, I still struggle to find clues—to see if I deliberately overlooked things in my eagerness to believe that we were, indeed, soul mates. With one minor exception, I can’t think of a single thing that would have tipped me off.

What finally blew his cover was falling in love. Apparently, it was easy for him to have sex and conceal that. But when you are in love, it shows. He developed that happy glow, tinged with desperation. I started hearing the mention of a certain name, and even in my state of willful denial, I couldn’t overlook what was right in front of my eyes.

Lovers live to confess and profess. When I finally asked, he admitted everything. The affairs. The subterfuges. The love for the other man.

And then, and there, my belief in soul mates died.

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If you live long enough, you will undoubtedly face betrayal of some sort. But when it comes early in your life, it marks you and changes you in ways that have ramifications for the remainder of your days.

I was 26 when my world fell apart. That meant I had a lot of living yet to do—and that I would have to live with a heart full of cracks that no amount of time or the glue of other loves could fully repair.

I am thankful that P. and I did not have children. After a prolonged period of rage and recriminations, our divorce was quiet and easy. He did not end up with his love interest after all. He has now been “married” to M. for nearly 15 years, and I love them both. We are still friends, though of the casual sort. Their lives are very different from mine, and it has become increasingly difficult over the years to find points of commonality. But we are tied by the memory of the good things we shared. We studiously avoid talking about the pain.

When I remarried, I married a good friend, whom I could trust. I’m not sure we ever really felt sparks for one another, but I was wary of sparks by then. Sparks burn you, and I no longer had any appetite for that kind of heat. Our relationship has always been one of deep warmth, respect, and commitment to the same values.

As I’ve said before, my husband is a good man—kind, faithful, and honorable. We love each other, in our way—but we both seem to hold back something essential.

I suspect that his reticence goes back to a childhood spent watching his parents’ passionately destructive marriage. For my husband, physical passion and emotional intimacy between a man and a woman are unsettling...even dangerous.

For me, my holding back relates partly to my history with P.—if you don’t let someone all the way in, he cannot destroy you.

The other part, however, is that you cannot give something to someone if he doesn't want it. You can only offer the gift of your heart so many times—after a while, you stop trying, form a shell around your soul, and build the best life you can.

And, mostly, that life has been good enough. For 13 years, we have sheltered each other against the storms of life. We are friends. We are good parents together. Until now, I thought those things were sufficient...

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And now I return to the subject of "The One Who Got Away."

I’ve talked before about my unanticipated desire for someone else. To tell the truth, I always thought I was above temptation. My image of myself has always been very much rooted in the belief that I am faithful by nature...and a certain self-righteous attitude that “good” people don’t allow themselves to be tempted.

Comeuppances can be very hard to swallow.

The desire has only grown over time. It has become the storm from which I need to be sheltered—but there is nowhere to hide. No one can rescue me from this.

Writing it out is the only solace I can find, the only way to make sense of something that feels so enormous to me—all the more so because it was totally unexpected.

As I said, lovers live to confess and profess. This is my confession...but there will be no absolution, because I will not—cannot—repent of what I feel.

I didn’t think I would ever fall in love again, but—God help me—I have.

Although absolutely nothing improper has passed between the two of us, I’m afraid I’m acting just like P. did when he fell in love. I have that desperate glow about me—alternately elated and despondent. I can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t think of anything but him. It’s been that way for months now.

Every time I am near him, there is the overwhelming feeling that we connect on all the most elemental levels—physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual. That heart is calling to heart and mind to mind—and that something magical is being born in the space between us. I have felt this magnetic pull almost from the first moment I ever laid eyes on him.

Of course, it sounds really juvenile when you write it all down—like some really bad dime-store romance novel. And it is possible that I am projecting the entire thing—it’s not as if I can come out and ask him how he feels.

But intuition tells me that I am not so far off-base—the chemistry between us seems undeniable. And juvenile or not, the feelings are nearly overpowering—you can almost hear the hum of electricity between us when we are in the same room.

He makes me feel alive somehow—my very best self. And he banishes, if only for a little while, the deep loneliness I feel in that place in my heart where no love lives.

It would be bad enough to feel this way about someone with whom you have no chance of connecting—but this is even worse. This love is almost unbearably painful for me because—much against my will—I am starting to wonder if maybe there really are such things as soul mates. And to wonder if mine is standing right in front of me, completely out of reach.

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It is hard to look at someone and feel love and a bitter sense of regret at the same time. To feel joy and taste ashes in your mouth simultaneously is painful to a degree I haven’t experienced since my first marriage came crashing down. I remind myself that despair is the worst sin of all, but I cannot help feeling it. There can be no happy ending to this story, because—even if he were interested—neither of us could afford the cost of trying to write it. There are too many other people involved and careers on the line. And, if you believe in that sort of thing, salvation is at risk.

We both believe.

I have often heard people talk about the “cost of discipleship,” and I finally know what that means. I will not rationalize this and look for what Dietrich Bonhoeffer dismissively referred to as “cheap grace.” As tempting as it is, I refuse to convince myself that God wants me to be happy, no matter what the cost. I protect them all—my children, my love, my husband—by remaining faithful...believing that this is what I must do, and that I prove my love best—for all of them—by silence.

This is the first real price I have paid for my faith—and it seems monstrously heavy at times. Yet I have found a costlier grace in all of this pain—my heart has been forced to love again...fully, deeply, passionately. I try to remember to be grateful for that, even when the heartache feels as if it will bring me to my knees.

Part of growing up is letting go of the belief that you can have it all.

I know this.

I know, too, that my feelings for him will probably diminish over time—and that this would happen so much faster if I stopped feeding them...gave up all contact, innocuous though it may be.

But I can’t, because my faith can only take me so far—can only induce me to give up so many of my small opportunities for happiness before I buckle under the weight of my loneliness.

And so...without wanting to, I sleep fitfully and dream of another life. One where I hold nothing back. One where I am fully and truly known and passionately loved to the depths of my shattered heart. An ordinary life. One where I can touch him, and read Emily Dickinson with him, and find out whether he leaves the toilet seat up or the cap off the toothpaste.

A life in which he didn’t get away.

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I cannot live with You --

It would be Life --

And Life is over there --

Behind the Shelf

 

The Sexton keeps the Key to --

Putting up

Our Life -- His Porcelain --

Like a Cup --

Discarded of the Housewife --

Quaint -- or Broke --

A newer Sevres pleases --

Old Ones crack --

 

I could not die -- with You --

For One must wait

To shut the Other's Gaze down --

You -- could not --

 

And I -- Could I stand by

And see You -- freeze --

Without my Right of Frost --

Death's privilege?

 

Nor could I rise -- with You --

Because Your Face

Would put out Jesus' --

That New Grace

 

Glow plain -- and foreign

On my homesick Eye --

Except that You than He

Shone closer by --

 

They'd judge Us -- How --

For You -- served Heaven -- You know,

Or sought to --

I could not --

 

Because You saturated Sight --

And I had no more Eyes

For sordid excellence

As Paradise

 

And were You lost, I would be --

Though My Name

Rang loudest

On the Heavenly fame --

 

And were You -- saved --

And I -- condemned to be

Where You were not --

That self -- were Hell to Me --

 

So We must meet apart --

You there -- I -- here --

With just the Door ajar

That Oceans are -- and Prayer --

And that White Sustenance --

Despair --

—-Emily Dickinson