The One That Got Away.

  
   As the Old Year 2013 closed and the New year 2014 was just around the corner I started thinking of New Years celebrations from the past and of the people who had come and gone over the years. I sat in front of the window alone sick with the flue and watch as the snow flakes drift slowly to collect on everything piling up making everything in sight white and sparkling in the moon light. There was a time on New Years in my past I would have been in a club or at a party drinking and whooping it up overindulging to the point of becoming very numb. I wonder to myself did I do this because it was fun and I was celebrating the coming year or was it that I secretly feared what it would bring? Was I making myself numb to forget the year that was slipping away or numbing myself for what was in my future? Do not get me wrong I had fun and have some great memories of those New Years Parties just wonder why I felt the need to get so wasted and feel so miserable the next day to ring in the New Year?

   I can not speak for everyone but in talking to most people I hear them tell a story of the one that got away. When they speak of the one who got away they are not telling a fishing story they are speaking of that one person from their past  that either things did not seem to work out or the fact they messed up in the relationship or possibly the relationship never was because they were to afraid to take that first step.What ever the background story everyone I think has that one person in the past they reflect back on now and then and wonder what if?

   I have to say I have more than one what ifs or the one that got away stories. I also have to say most if not all those stories if told truthfully would not paint me in the best light. In looking back although I know relationships take two to make it work I have enough clarity in my life at this time to know I was more to blame for my losses than those I was with. I had a habit of wanting love but not knowing how to return it. I feel I am a very caring person and would give anything for those I care about including my life but in the past letting someone in completely to my world scared the hell out of me.The closer a person got and the more they became part of my life it seemed the more I would push them away. I at the time had no clue that I was pushing them away and in my mind thought I was giving my all to the relationship. I also had the habit of once one relationship ended I would jump head first into another. I am sure this did not show the person I was previously with that I cared when I could seem to forget them and just be with someone else so fast. The fear of being alone was strong but also wanting my own space was very confusing.

   There was one relationship that was strong and felt right and I felt I was able to give my all too but circumstances of life worked against it and in the end I let go because I felt it best for the other person. I would often wonder what if? or if I could only go back to that day when it all fell apart could things have been different? I have been lucky enough to reconnect with many from my past and explain and apologize for treating them the way I did and hopefully letting them know it was not them that was the problem. I also wanted them to know I did not do the things I did with malice or because I was an evil person just messed up and broken in ways I could not explain at the time.

   I have one friend who told me a story of reconnecting with their what if and told me they wished they had left it in the past. This person they had built up in their mind turned out to be just human and not the super fantasy person they had made them out to be. My friend told me it was a let down to lose that fantasy because it got them through some rough times thinking that maybe that super relationship was out there just waiting for the day they needed it. The reconnection dashed the fantasy and left them feeling lost in the fact their back up plan had been lost. I think we each have a fantasy life or love that we mentally go to when things get bad or not going as we wish giving us hope to go on at least I know I do or did I should say. I have figured out over the years that I needed for myself to drop the fantasy and live in the now not to say I do not fantasize because I do. I just do not compare my fantasy life to my real life I found that to cause problems in that my real life could never live up to my fantasy life. Fantasy life got me through some very rough times in my life but it became a problem when I lived in that world or tried to more often than to put effort into what was real.

   So yes I have some The One That Got Away stories and like I say looking back at those stories I find I am to blame for most of them. Getting passed the blame game was very hard for me in that I found it easier to point out all of their faults but I could not look at my own. Looking into a mirror at the person looking back can be very hard because the view you see is not always that of what others can see. I remember back in the days of my heavy drug use I had taken a hit of acid at a party and went to the bathroom to relieve myself. After I had finished I started to wash my hands and looked at myself in the mirror. I could see lines in my face of course intensified by the drug but there none the less. I could see things that I had never seen before because I would when looking in a mirror just glance and never really looked that close at the reflection looking back. I do not want to indorse the usage of drugs this is just me telling my experience. I stood there looking in that mirror for longer than I had ever looked before and I swear I could see my personality staring back at me and I did not like the person I was seeing. 

   That experience changed something in me and opened me up to the fact I needed to improve myself if I ever wanted to be in a relationship and not endless dating or another one night stand. If I had wrote a One That Got Away story a few years back I am sure it would have come off as, it was not my fault and would probably have laid the blame on the other person that was much easier than looking at who was really at fault and that was me. So to those I encountered along the way it wasn't you it actually was me.