You will not be able to think about him without being wishful. Is it possible to feel sad and happy at the same time? You suppose so, because that's how you feel right now. Is he still alive? Does he have children? Does he live in this country? You wonder what you would say if you saw him standing right in front of you. Maybe you would say hello and quietly walk away. Maybe you would both find a coffee shop where you could sit down and tell each other everything that has happened to each of you i the past 10 or 20 years. Then again, you might just freeze at the sight of him and run for your life.
He is your great love. The one who got away, the one you thought you were going to run away and live in the mountains with, the one who you promised would be the father of your children. But it was simply not meant to be.
You moved away. Or he moved away. Or one of you found someone else. Whatever the reason may have been, you decided to end the relationship. And even if the parting of ways was the hardest thing you had to bear, you picked up the pieces and moved on. Because he is your great love, you will only look back at what you shared with fondness and sweet regret.
Does everyone have a "Great Love," I wonder? Somehow, I don't think so. I think some of us consciously or unconsciously miss this opportunity to fall in love this deeply in our lifetime because at the time that we were in the middle of the romance, we were overwhelmed by the risk, the danger, and the uncertainty. Yes, he could have been the guy who sat next to you in the long bus ride you took when you were in your teens. Or the schoolmate from another building who you caught stealing glances your way at the canteen. Or one of your best guy friends in college whom you were getting extra close to until his family took him away to live in other country. Who knows?
A very wise young friend said she believes great loves fail in the end because the fear that it is too good to last will in one way or another overwhelm the feelings between the two parties. Suddenly, everything is rationalized and scrutinized and belittled. Great Love becomes an "unstable and scary" thing, doubted and broken down into tiny bits. But Great Love can never be broken down. It is whole in itself. It is when everything is magnified and meaningful, when no effort is made and still, things grow intensely within your chest. It's that warm and fuzzy feeling that surrounds you in a very, very comfortable way. and then it is also passionate, out of control, making you feel like screaming and bursting into song every minute you can. It is that one fantastic feeling that makes you feel so sure and unsure at any given moment.
Great love lasts long, sometimes much longer than the actual relationship between the two great lovers. It is nasty, too, because it will suddenly remind you right when you are very, very close to moving on that once you loved and loved deeply. And then you sit down, put your head in your hands, and wonder what you're going to do now.
Maybe love becomes great because of what the two people involved go through together, the best and worst of times. They go through periods of time when they thrash about, wanting to murder each other and at the same time, being unable to be apart. They scream, they cry. They question the love but are unable to find answers. They somehow find solace in the ambivalence of where they are exactly in this universe of good and bad. They are happy because in the midst of the trying times of being in the cusp of adulthood, there is someone there who loves them without question and without reason. Knowing this is comforting and uplifting. It becomes the perfect foundation for great love.
Lucky are those who end up with their great loves. Not all great loves are necessarily those who got away. I say they are lucky because they know deep in the bottom of their tummies that there is nothing else (or no one else) they will want. They will be able to define for you what true happiness feels like. They have experienced everything they needed to experience before being called by God to join Him. There truly is nothing else that will mean more than what they have.
Still, there are those who lives and married someone, other than their great love. We only know that they did not marry their great love because if you ask them about their past romantic history, their tired and weary eyes will suddenly flicker and light up, as if remembering happy times. They will talk about someone with incredible detail, someone from their very distant past. You can picture him in mind, this man they once loved. He was tall, almost six feet and chinito. All girls fell for him because he was very good looking, very boyish. His voice was just beautiful to listen to. He was very cute, she giggles, and you giggle with her.
She does not seem sad when she talks about him. You picture them together. She tell you that they like watching movies, going to ice cream parlors and going dancing. When you ask her why they separated, she will sigh and say that, "it was just not meant to be." And then she will look away, as if wondering about him. Is he still alive?
And no, she will not know what to say when she meets him again.
Maybe Great Loves is meant to be thought of that way. It is a magical thing that happened to you, that you enjoyed, and that will always remember, not with regret but with wistfulness.
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