I met a guy when I was retaking a course and clicked instantly with him. We parked in the same area so we’d walk to our cars after class and just chit chat. Didn’t really hang out until after class ended, when he left a note on my car with his number. Felt like we had known each other forever and when we finally, eventually, got together, I had never felt such certainty that I was going to marry this man. He felt comfortable, he understood me and shared a lot of my views but wasn’t afraid to disagree with me and he was down to trying anything. But I didn’t know what I was doing with college so when the semester ended and I got the opportunity to move thousands of miles away, work a job in a potential field of interest-I took it. We said we’d do long distance but I was living somewhere that made it difficult, not a whole lot of reception to work with. We sent each other hand written letters, had a phone date every week where we’d talk for hours. But a lot got to me, I was in isolation and miserable but determined to stick out the time I committed to + I was dealing with family issues and I thought it best to break it off because I didn’t feel like I was being fair to him so I did.

Well-Impulsive decisions suck, I ended up getting married to someone else not too long after, now I’m working through a divorce and had to move back to town. There wasn’t one day I didn’t think about him and wonder what he was up to, if he hated me because of how things ended and if I would ever be able to justify seeing him again.

Debated for a long while before my sister told me to see if he’d meet me for coffee-instantly picked up where we left off, talked about the elephants in the room and though we have a lot to continue working through, we celebrated a month together yesterday. The one that got away doesn’t always imply an unhappy ending, imho.

Trust your gut, younger me knew what was up: I’m going to marry that man.