Your Love

A letter to myself about regret.

You squandered the chance of your lifetime working as a waiter at a gastropub, and the more you think back the more you know it. In all the time and places since, you’ve never encountered a girl so pretty, young and into you, and you know it. Now is the time to look back as to why.

She could have been yours for life. She claimed to have a “long distance boyfriend” and you knew she didn’t know anyone before that. You knew that you could have her because unlike him, you were real. And she wanted to be with you. She couldn’t help but hang onto your every word for pretty much the whole shift. Knowing the limitations of your preexisting relationships, she gave you a crystal trinket as a gift that you later broke out of neglect.

You didn’t pursue her because you were busy wasting your love on someone who deserves less than nothing and has been getting as much heaped on them by the entire world without you. Murders and abortions galore and that woman still has learned nothing of her own hand in the nightmare that is her life. And you were dumb enough to think even for a second that she deserved some kind of restraint or second thought or further consideration. Every man who ever gave her that with any trust is in a living hell now. Your only saving grace is you never fully trusted her with anything.

But you could have had that girl you met and you know it. It pains you to look back on that, to imagine the life you could have had. It sucks tremendously. She was perfect. 18, white, toothy grin, and in want of you. She had every potential to be flicking her bare thighs in front of you at night like an angelic little cricket. She could be deep in your embrace gasping for your love. She could be the bearer of your children. She could be absolutely in love with you, forever.

She had the potential to be absolutely ridiculous for you. And you know a good deal better these days about how flawed and often ridiculous you are. And to think she would 100% unconditionally accept that, embrace it, and love it? It screams for words I can hardly find. She would become ridiculous with you, barefoot and ass out with an apron on cooking and cleaning in the kitchen, not because of mores or really anyone’s opinions except yours. Considering how many problems and faults you have, that’s incredible that it was right there, that someone could abandon all calculated sensibility and do the things you love because you love it. It was right in front of you. But it never happened.

No one like her has come by since with the time to meet you. Every woman who glances upon your face and blushes has no link through which to learn your name. And for the time being, that’s how it has to be. Here, there is ample space for you to learn about the problem with your mistress from before. The woman that kept you, in your mind, from the real woman of your life.

That woman was worse than a mistress which is bad enough on its own as you know. She is a temptress. And she robbed you of the chance to mate for life with, so far, the only woman worthy of such a thing you have ever met.

You are young, but not immortal. You have to understand the cost of such people in your lives, and you are beginning to learn. God has shown you through these kinds of experiences what you lose when fraternising with the damned. Haven’t you also had a nightmare of being shot in the back while laying into her? Use your common sense about it. Don’t overthink it. You know the answer: don’t do it.

It sucks terribly, but that is the burden men righteously face. It matters not that you may not have been wettened in years, because in the end you are the more romantic one as a man, and you will have your chance to choose as well if you persevere. You have to connect these kinds of things if you wish to have an everlasting peace. If you want to win, this is how it must happen. You must understand how to find fault in yourself. I trust you have enough self-esteem not to overdo it to the exclusion of what others are culpable for. As sure as no one can take away the charisma and balls you displayed to have her smitten, no one can ever be held accountable for missing her except you. You will probably never get her last name or a number to call. No way to look her up, and it’s your fault. Obviously you could have asked. You could have dropped everything to follow your heart. But you didn’t. If you care about you, find the common denominator! Then it will get a little better.

Take care of yourself and keep taking responsibility. You’re already doing well enough not lying to yourself as so many who used to surround you do. Count your blessings that you have enough time to perhaps be given a second chance to find that woman before the parameters change too much and you find yourself in a different level of life with wholly different fortitudes being stressed entirely. Some day, if you do right, you will be able to look back on your lost love and the mistress as lesson bearers of your life, rather than just women you have loved and lost.