The One That Got Away

I'm talking about thee one. The one person from your past that pops up occasionally in your mind. The one you still dream about and wake up feeling sad and lonely for. The person you hear about on and off through the years, maybe even see occasionally with their spouse, and think to yourself that that person (their spouse) is living what could have been your life. I think most of us have that one person that when you were with them at the time it just wasn't your time to be together. You go your separate ways for whatever reason but then wonder as the years go by what it would have been like if things had worked out differently.

That someone for me was a boy I'd met during the summer I spent in Maine with my dad. I'd lived in Florida at the time and my dad sent me an airline ticket. So I got to spend three months in a place that has to this day remained where my heart is. The boy I'd met that summer was a little older than me, but we were both fairly innocent. We spent a lot of time together, lying on a blanket beneath the stars, just talking, walking down to the corner ice cream stand. Every chance we got we found a way to be together. Before the end of the summer we shared one, little kiss.

Then I had to fly back to Florida, and he went into the navy. We wrote each other for two years until he met a girl and got married. That summer was forty-seven years ago, and because his family and my family come from the same small town the connection has kept him in my life in a very distant way. Yet I still have the occasional dream of him, and wake feeling as if I've lost something.

Can anyone relate?