Love of My Life

The love of my life called tonight. I met him when I was 18 and a freshman in college. He sat behind me in one of my classes and barely said three words to me the entire semester, which was remarkable because I was very friendly with everyone in the class. It wasn’t until the end-of-semester party, a couple beers in his system, that we had our first conversation. He was in a serious relationship at the time, so he decided to introduce me to one of his male friends. Even though that amounted to a failed attempt at matchmaking, it successfully forged our friendship. For the next couple years, we watched each other cycle through various relationships, always there for each other. It was toward the end of my junior year that our conversations took a different tone and the friendship began a slow evolution into something deeper.

Unfortunately, neither of us was mature enough for that kind of love. We let fear dictate the fate of our feelings and blamed it on bad timing. At first it was easy to put off expressing how we felt about each other. I took for granted that he would always be there for me. After I graduated, I lived abroad for an extended period. When I returned, he was on his way to graduate school abroad. He asked me to go with him; my courage buckled and I let him leave. The leaving didn’t seem final because I thought it was reversible; that is, until he married someone else. He is still married and now has two kids. There is literally an ocean between us and a gulf where the reversibility once resided.

It’s a problem. I am not a home wrecker, but I am weak around him. When I’m with him, I’m awakened, pregnant with the fantasy that I can board a time machine and change the course of our history. The romantic in me – the one who believes in everlasting, true love – comes out to play.

I simultaneously long for and dread seeing him. Last time we saw each other I was in the middle of my divorce and he was in a bad patch in his marriage. We acknowledged that fear had kept us apart all these years and that the love hasn’t subsided. He said he always thought I was too good for him; I believed he was too good for me.

Maybe he doesn’t love me as much as I imagine, but I don’t think he has the strength to leave his wife. Regardless, I am afraid of what might happen the next time we see each other. What if the bad patch in his marriage has persisted and he doesn’t have the strength to stay faithful, and I don’t have the strength to resist?

We may find out soon. He is coming to this side of the ocean and wants me to meet him for a weekend. This will be the true test of my celibacy. The one thought – belief – that gives me the strength I need is that I deserve love from a man who makes me the number one and the only woman in his life. I already settled once in my life and I’m determined to not settle again.