To Be More than Just a Distant, Lukewarm Memory

One of the most wonderful things in life is a woman looking into your eyes and telling you that she loves you and seeing that love in her eyes. One of the most painful things in life is loving that woman dearly and looking into those eyes and not seeing the love for you that was once there. You can add to that having a woman that you still love and that once professed her love for you being unwilling or unable to look you in the eyes.

A least a few times in the depths of sadness and melancholy, I have entertained the idea that perhaps it might have been better had I died while a particular woman was still enthralled with me. How it might have been better if she remembered me as someone that she loved and I was not just someone from her past that she used to love and ultimately stopped loving. How it might have been better if I was "what might have been" and not "what briefly was and was ultimately rejected."

Now before those of you that know me personally start texting me or calling me to remind me not to do something stupid, I should acknowledge that I am okay. I am not in a particularly dark place or a bad place. I'm okay. Better than okay actually. I just watched a clip from a James Bond movie that got me thinking about those previously entertained dark musings.

We know that relationships end. We know that a sizable percentage of marriages end in divorce. We know that a number of those dissolved relationships and marriages result in one or both parties having a degree of animus for their former friend or romantic partner. Yet how would he or she be remembered if a particular relationship was seemingly cut short tragically by the partner's untimely demise?

I am happy to be alive. I wouldn't have it any other way. But sometimes in the dark shadows of sadness and melancholy, I have briefly reflected upon an alternate reality where I am gone and the former romantic partner left behind mourns me and ponders what might have been rather than thinking "Meh" when I happen to cross her mind. I believe that things happen for a reason and I believe that sometimes we are going to get our hearts broken. Life isn't always sunny days. Sometimes it rains. Sometimes it storms. Sometimes it rains like the bottom fell out of the bucket. But then we have the opportunity to enjoy and appreciate the rainbows that follow the rain. 🌈 🥲

Below is a link to a video clip of the short-lived marriage of Ian Fleming's James Bond (played by George Lazenby in his single appearance as James Bond) in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This was the clip that ultimately saw me once more tumbling down the rabbit hole into the realm of alternate realities that never happened.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=edF7IuytZ3k