The Myth of Star-Crossed Lovers
The One That Got Away — Love’s Toughest & Dramatic Lesson
We’ll be star-crossed lovers, forever.
Do you want to guess how many times I’ve sent out that exact message? Sometimes it would be the morning after a night of dancing with the boy who met my gaze in a drunken stupor. Other times, it was a bit more painful, after the end of a significant many-months sort of relationship with the boy who caught my attention on a dating app.
The first time, of course, was to my First Love, no one ever forgets them… from starry-eyed to star-crossed, I truly believed that He was The One- until, of course, he wasn’t.
So yes, “star-crossed lovers”, means more than just a tryst with Romeo to me.
It almost became my way of life.
I cross paths with someone, connect with someone, feel something magical with someone else, but for whatever reason, none of these ‘someone’ worked out. When this happens, I blame it on the timing, the distance, the person, myself, his choice of, well everything, and so on. But, relationships expire.
Looking back, I wonder if any of those ones could have been The One- you know, The One That Got Away.
Many nights I’ve found myself lying in bed, owl-eyed, thinking about one of those someones. I wonder if the stars were aligned a certain way the night that we met, then maybe?
Literature and films have been a testament to this doomed love for time to come. Rising from the iconic love of Romeo and Juliet, spreading like fire to Winston and Julia (1984, Orwell), Augustus and Hazel (The Fault In Our Stars, Green), Joel and Clementine (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Jack and Rose (Titanic), Satine and Christian (Moulin Rouge), and my absolute favorite star-crossed couple, Jesse and Celine from the Before Sunset series.
I wonder, is there a reason why art prefers love that is doomed?
We all have one that got away. Everyone loves a good ghost story, and the mind is a haunted attic. Only, these objects of our imagination don’t always wait till night to make trouble. They torment us at will — hiding in the lyrics of your favourite song, or between the lines of your loved restaurant’s menu, then, of course, there is social media. These ghosts manifest in the oddest manners and ways.
Throughout our lives, many of us will meet more than one person we could have been happy with. The one that got away is a hard lesson because it not only teaches you the weight of love. It teaches you the weight of loss.
But there is a dark side to the one that got away. There is a danger of living through regrets. Of putting past loves so high up on a pedestal that our present partners get neck spasms from looking up.
Happy memories are written in indelible ink. Painful memories are written on our tabula rasa — we wipe the slate clean to move on.
On the other hand,
Is there truly a ‘One That Got Away’?
The idea that we are only meant to be with one person on this planet is not romantic. It’s sad.
Each love is a different experience. I still remember the first time I said, “I love you”, the first time I fell heart-first into a ‘love at first glance’ situation, the first time I cried because I professed my love to my best friend and he told me he was leaving the country (not related to each other, behave!), the first time I stood on the beach, with the one I thought I was going to be with forever and ever, and then some more, staring into his eyes making all kinds of promises. This list goes on and on, for a few more ‘firsts’.
My point here is, you can love many people. Hundreds. Well, if you have that kind of energy. Probably not in one lifetime? But you know where I’m going with this. Each love is a passionate, entirely unique, experience. Through relationships, including all the messiness, especially all the messiness, we continue to learn, grow, change and evolve. Hopefully together. Not apart. And that’s the beauty of love.
Love grows and expands us like nothing else.
So going back to this idea of The One, do you still think that there is such a thing?
Wondering what could have been will always throw you into a useless time machine. Instead, you could probably think of all these stories as chapters in your life, that have led to the present page that you’re writing. So your past, not so much star-crossed as, well, great writing material for ten years later!
