I Got a Second Chance With “The One That Got Away”

Many of us wonder what would happen if we got a second chance to make amends, or rekindle that old flame, with the one that got away. Few of us ever receive the opportunity to find out. Well, on June 28th, 2022,

I was lucky enough to be one of those people.

It happened after my mother read this piece I published here around two weeks ago, expressing the deep regret I’d been living with for nearly five years over losing my best friend and breaking his heart.

After taking a few days and approaching me about what she read, I told her the truth. I wished I had the chance to talk to him, to tell him everything that went unsaid. I wished I’d had the time to make things right.

She asked if I wanted her to intervene and although I was nervous about the idea of her getting involved, I asked her if she would help me. Within an hour,

We were on the phone.

I Thought This Was a New Beginning

At first, as with most things, it started out great

It was pure magic. It was a bit awkward but it didn’t take long for the natural rhythm to flow. I spilled my apologies out of me like a fountain and he accepted them graciously.

I told him how much I truly had always loved him and we even told each other that we (still) loved each other. He even told me I was the woman he always wanted to have a child with and truth be told he was the only man I could see fathering my children, as well.

We were very vulnerable. I told him he was the love of my life and he told me I was still the special girl in his. Things were flowing so naturally that we both agreed to

We agreed to meet this past Saturday at 10 a.m. I believed we were off to some sort of new beginning. But we would never make it to Saturday because we never made it at all.

And thank God we didn’t.

I Had a Feeling This Wouldn’t Last

Something was telling me not to get too comfortable

I couldn’t understand why but my intuition was telling me that this beautiful reunion was not so beautiful on his end, but a rare chance to even the score on his part. This feeling would be proven once we were face to face.

We were on the phone for five hours and moved from that to getting on a zoom call. As soon as we did, he didn’t look the same. Yes, he looked slightly different but I’m talking about what I saw when I looked him in his eyes. I didn’t trust him, and I didn’t know why.

But I was about to find out.

As he looked around my background, he started judging me. He made remarks about how I lived like I was poor and in poverty because I was using a flip phone and had a 27-inch flatscreen, compared to his two 50-inch flatscreens.

I’m also a minimalist, a transition that started in the last two months of our friendship, so I have hardly any furniture in my room and lined my floor with Christmas lights. He looked at it and said I was living like I was in jail.

He told me that although I may have elevated that I needed to elevate materialistically. I forgot how materialistic I used to be.

He Reminded Me of Who I Used to Be

Because he was still on that level

I forgot that labels used to make me feel expensive on the inside. Now, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t one of those women who required anyone I was with to be rich, this was strictly about me and where I felt my worth could be found.

He also attacked my appearance, making jokes about the headwrap I wear and looked put off when my weight of 107 lbs casually came up. He remarked that I was too thin and how he needed to “fatten” me up.

I knew this was a personal jab because he had earlier said how he gained a lot of weight when we had initially ended our friendship. I say this because I was just as small when he knew.

I’ve always been tiny.

He then asked if I ever moved to a very specific place where I always desired to live. It was clear that I didn’t because I was literally still in the same room he had been in quite a few times — he asked to be hurtful.

I realized, quite painfully. that these weren’t just jokes and questions. He was being mean, intentionally. Not only that, he was now playing head games. We were in touch for three days and each day he grew increasingly distant.

This was very telling since he told me, in our initial conversation, that what he valued more than anything is “consistency”. Specifically, consistent conversation. Yet, he was now the one becoming inconsistent and using being hurt and having a guard up as an excuse.

Although that is valid, why not have that energy from the start and keep that consistent. Why wait for me to open up more and more to give less and less of yourself? I’ll tell you exactly why?

He was punishing me.

He Wanted Me to Prove Myself

He told me women have to do that when it comes to him now

I’ve had a history of putting my whole life on hold for men. That part of me died with enough encounters with men who would have had no problem keeping me waiting.

Specifically with false promises and reassuring words, which is what he was doing. It was so sobering to witness him go from telling me he wanted a family with me to suddenly going cold.

From disappearing once he was home from work, to eventually becoming too busy to talk (for the most part) at all. All this within the first two days. I was confused but I knew I was purposefully being given mixed signals.

And I wasn’t having it.

I’ve wasted enough precious time of my life, waiting. Especially waiting for men. And he knew that, he witnessed that. Now, here he was trying to recreate it for me — because he felt I deserved it.

The problem he would encounter would be the fact that I no longer felt that same way. In fact, I actually deserved more.

He is not the man I waited all this time for, and sure we can blame me for it but, at the risk of sounding heartless, people get their hearts broken every single day. It doesn’t make every single one of us cold.

Especially not on the first go.

I’m Holding onto My Integrity

I fight the battle every day of keeping my heart warm

I say this because at the tail end of our friendship I would meet a man who I truly did love and it ended horrifically. I talk about that here. And although it ended as cruelly as it did, I don’t choose to go around hurting people for fear of getting hurt again.

Because I just can’t go out like that, I can’t become the rest. I am my own living example and because of that, I can’t take on that responsibility for how he chose to turn out anymore. Because it was a choice and because I was present to heal what was damaged.

I cannot make a person let me in if they absolutely refuse to — and I’m not going to. But he was also trying to make me sweat it out and put me in the position he believed he was once in.

It was at this point, this is where our five years apart began to show the changes in me. Guilty or not, I’m not going to let anyone else beat up on me any harder than I was already beating up on myself.

This is the moment I forgave myself and instantly began protecting myself, from the man that once made me feel safe.

This was where I drew my line and did what I hadn’t been able to do for the past five years, let go. I never hurt him on purpose, but that doesn’t negate the fact that he was hurt.

This I understand.

However, I am also not going to live one more day guilty of transgressions I committed when I was a different version of myself. Who I am now will not pay for the sins of a dead aspect of who I used to be.

His Pain Is Not My Problem Anymore

Even if I am the one that caused it

I am done playing the villain in both of our stories now. If that’s how he chooses to remember me, then that’s on him to wage his wars with a ghost. It is not my problem, as selfish as this may sound.

It is what it is.

I could understand if I was maliciously targeting him and trying to trap him but I actually let him go years ago because I felt I couldn’t gain the same exact feelings for him.

I thought I was doing what was best for him, setting him free to encounter the love he deserved. If he chooses to hate me for that, so be it. But I did not break his heart intentionally. I could have strung him along and been selfish.

I could have only thought about myself and taken everything I needed in a man directly from him and moved on when I was done. Instead, I chose to set him free and became all that I needed from him for myself. Most people will never make that decision.

Most people will never be that brave.

I was being mature and if that is something he can’t understand it’s not my problem anymore. I no longer carry the guilt and blame anymore. I spent the past five years punishing myself. I thought of him every single day and kept this image of who he used to be in my head.

I Was Holding onto the Idea of Him

He prophecized this early into our first conversation

He said he always wondered if I was in love with the idea of him, instead of him. He wondered if I loved the idea of having someone to love me the way he did. Someone, I could communicate everything with and go anywhere with.

Someone, I could feel safe and secure with. Someone who would do anything for me. He wondered if I was in love with the idea of who he was and what he offered, without being in love with him. And, after how things transpired,

I realized, he was right.

I was in love with the idea of him.

He represented a form of love I strongly desired and needed, but he also represented an era in my life where I was genuinely happy. I have been deeply missing the past and he was the physical embodiment of that time and place I missed so dearly.

An era that I desperately want to get back to, but can’t. Time won’t let me. So, I held onto that idea of him, thinking if I could get back to him I could get back to the past. Once this illusion was shattered, I finally understood I really did love him but it was never romantic — and never would be.

I tried to force it when I was younger because I didn’t recognize my own intuition nor what it was trying to tell me; I wasn’t falling in love with him because, for whatever reason, I was not supposed to.

This epiphany was freeing because you really don’t know how long this regret was eating my ass up and now I can finally breathe again. I finally have the closure I needed to close a chapter of my life that has plagued me for half a decade.

Finally, I can be kind to myself and give myself the closure I’ve been needing, to move on. Finally, I am free. I can let him go now. It’s over and I never have to spend another minute wondering “what if?” or wondering if I made a big mistake.

What allowed me to finally let this go was the realization that we were not only two different people now, but had gone in two completely opposite directions. I became the version of him I held in my mind.

And he became the version of me he grew to hate.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean?

My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence

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