A tale
He was in the mid of his adulthood. Good job, own place, money and in shape. He had sorted out his juvenile struggles — the traumas from home, the strict father, the punches, the years of solitude and not loving himself. The days he cried and wanted to die, the weeks of closed therapy, the losses and burying a girlfriend. All that, even if he felt it sounded bad, made him a btter person. A more complete one. A person that understands the depth of emotions, the emptiness of losing and the price of time.
After turbulent years of up and downs, he changed the country, changed the environment. Ocean, good food and high quality of living with, for the first time in his life, money and secured future. Opening up to new people again, taking responsibility of a possible relationship.
She was nothing he had ever encountered before. Imagine the most beautiful person you know, smart, fast , kind hearted with an endless emotional intelligence. She was the type of girl to meet the parents, to commit a crime with, to laugh and smile just of thinking about her.
They started dating, love was in the air, everything seems right. But then, as life, reality struck. She was finishing up a relationship with another person. The relationship was not truly relevant to him, what was is what he understood out of it. That all the beauty she is, is somehow secluded by some overwhelming sadness that does not let her go on in life, does not let her love, not because she would not want to but because she did not think that she would be able to do so. Sometimes, glimpses of what she was and what she is came out and then disappeared in a rejected sadness to life. He knew that, he understood that. Maybe better than herself. Hence, he stayed.
Months went by, and the insecurity, the uncertainty of her made him derail. The stable man that arrived to the Mediterranean paradise started to pass away and the old, evil and dangerous him emerged: insecure, brutal, ready to fight at any time, wander the world with anger for never feel being loved, never be enough for someone. Childhood traumas came to the surface again.
He knew, that with this attitude he could not be in anything healthy anymore, he was not lively anymore. She knew that as well. But they kept trying, glimpses of the promised love came out every once in a while but reality weighed too much, oppressed the rest, lead to negativity and unhealthy ego thoughts. And, just like that, one day she decided what he knew was best. To part ways, to be alone so to one day they can be together in what seemed to promised by life to them. He was never good with patience, the fears of losing her were too big even though he knew that if the person would be form him, he needed to let her go, make her walk and eventually meet her again, further down the line in a better place.
Sometimes you love something so much, that you want to hold on it knowing that best is letting go. This type of love is the hardest. The glimpses of what could have been and never having the chance to really have ever tried… eventually, they parted ways.
She started working on herself. Confronted her fears, things that in youth needs to be settled. And the former glimpses of her inner beauty started to shine again, started to come out, her face became even more beautiful.
He drugged himself for two weeks, spend all the money on drinks and at nights tried to cry, tried to find the words he wanted to say, wrote her a few times, littering monologues that might have only had one message: lets try this, lets be together.
The true pain is not that people need to evolve, that life has its stages and we need to identify them and life them, true pain is that people than could have been magic, never became it. The what ifs in life is what finally kills us not the regrets of having tried things that did not work out.
So the tale can have three endings.
One is that during his intoxication with drugs that filled his emptiness for moments, he always wondered when this times would be that she said shed be fully there for him, for them. That is all he needed to go on. But that summer night, he drove to fast, took to many lines and crashed on the ocean road to the abyss. He died alone. She got the news, she was devasted for a few months but then moved on. At then end for him it was the final stage of love, for her it was the beginning of finding her inner self again, the one we lose in bad relationships and find with the right person. Sad truth is that we not always enjoy this true us with the person that opened it up again. He could have been happy with being that for her. He was. But the pain was to deep and the car too fast. Eventually she finds a new love, fully prepared to be happy and fulfilled.
Another is that after some time, they got together, leaving the past behind and truly enjoy the road together — wherever it takes, nobody knows but they opened up to each other, they tried , failed , loved, cried and made a story. For how long or how short, who knows.
The third is that they never meet again, maybe see each other in a far distance, hear a story here and there on what the other person did, on where they are now, who they date, who they love, if they still work here and there, is they lived on old or died young. Finally their story stays in the what if and maybe in silent night both might think “this would have been her, this would have been him, only if the timing was right, only if life would gotten it right.”
This is the tale of what humans call love, emotions, relationships.
Between being afraid of what if and what could have been often relies what truly is.