A Love Lost
The Unfinished Love Story
Is it any less than love when it had no chance to live out?
I don’t say this to elicit your sympathy but my heart hasn’t done so well at writing romantic love stories with happy endings into the script of my life.
But I am not here to tell you any stories with sad endings. Not at all.
The truth is that the happiest love story that remains in my memory is one with no ending. Open-ended, never closed. Or perhaps with an ending that has floated off into the void, murmured too quietly for me to hear.
One in which love never had the chance to blossom fully but every chance to creep into the little cracks in my seasoned heart.
Despite it all, I live for the love stories and believe fiercely that they have the last word on this thing called life. Love is the very essence that carries us through it and, no matter how it unfolds, I carefully store every memory of love that has punctuated my world, quietly comforted by its presence, no matter how fleeting.
The truth is that I’m a romantic at heart.
When I fall in love, I fall hard. So hard, in fact, that it can be the very undoing of me. Every cell in my body will become invested in this blossoming relationship, and the potential for a broken heart is immense.
And then, for whatever reason, my heart doesn’t just break but shatters into a thousand pieces.
When I met Jamie, I had already fallen too hard in the past. I saw the signs and decided to make a pact with myself. To hold myself — and my heart — together, and make it work for me in its entirety or not at all.
Such was my determination that only the universe would have the power to bring about a true love story, if it was meant to be.
From the first meeting, Jamie was everything I desired in a man. Humble, gentle, kind, creative, considerate, loving, and open-minded.
It was no wonder I saw myself slipping down that worryingly familiar slope.
When we first walked together on the beach, he told me about his travels to different parts of Eastern Europe where he was involved in creative arts projects. He told me of his sudden and unexpected return to Devon from London at the start of the pandemic, abandoning his home of many years, which had left him a little lost on his path.
He told me of the loss of his father just a few years earlier, and how he was happy to be able to help his mother in her widowhood, now he was back home with her.
He talked a lot. Said he hadn’t talked so much for months, and then thanked me for listening.
“Next time, I will stay quiet and only let you talk,” he said.
But I didn’t mind. I could listen to him talk for hours.
The next time we met, true to his word, he wanted me to talk and he listened. He wanted me to tell him about myself and my life.
Where does one start and where does true representation begin?
I have stories from my past that could fill several novels with colour and adventure. But that day, that moment was the most interesting moment that existed.
Instead of my many stories, he saw me — unedited.
He saw my world that existed between the mundanities of being a mother, of finding adventure despite travelling little more than within a 30-mile radius, and the cheerful online friendships I had woven to become my social world. He learnt of the tiny things that made me happy — my new and darling buddy Ginger the dog, walking in nature, and remastering the flute after a long hiatus.
I told him of my writing, and of all my plans, my hopes, and my dreams. I filled any potential gaps with all the reasons I would keep pursuing them.
But beyond the talk, it was in the here and now that I was basking. That’s where our conversation flowed and what came rolling off of my tongue.
And, in truth, he was already a part of that joy of the present moment.
I was already falling deeply for this guy who made me feel at such ease with who I am, boring life and all. Who found me interesting, enthralling, despite the seemingly mundane path I trod, day-in and day-out.
We had connected, the two of us. And I know that he was falling for me too. Possibly just as fast, for there was true magic between us for those weeks we spent time in one another’s company.
But there was one thing that gnawed at me.
His return to living in Devon was always intended to be temporary. It was where he grew up and the place he left behind as a young art student. It was never intended to become home again.
He was waiting for the opportunity to take the next step, away from here. Where to, he wasn’t completely sure. But he had friends who had invited him to come and live in exciting cities in Europe, where he could be around more people, music, arts, and everything that inspired him from day-to-day.
And, no matter how hard I thought about it, I knew that any future relationship with someone who needs that stimulation and has no dependents to hold him down could never work. I simply did not have the freedom to travel between Europe and the UK and it would not be healthy for me to even make any sacrifices to do so.
And so, as the restrictions of Covid-19 began to lift and allow freedoms to resume, I gave him his freedom.
I told him that he was the best thing that had happened to me in a long time but that I couldn’t continue a relationship in which I held him back, or in which he expected me to step up to something I couldn’t fulfil. After all, I had dreams and desires of my own, too. And they required me to remain close to home, anchored to the life I had built here.
I wanted him to live the life he most desired, to be following his artistic career in the places he felt most stimulated, and with the social surrounding he needed.
I told him I would forever remember this precious moment in my life, grateful for the magical time we had spent together. But I would not contact him again for it would gnaw at me and turn me into the lovesick, pained and heartbroken woman that I had promised myself never to become again. For me, this was a huge wrench and the only way I could survive it with dignity was to let him go completely.
Sad but understanding, he acknowledged and accepted my request of no contact.
I stuck to my word.
But the only way was to delete all contact details I had for him, otherwise I would have always been thinking of contacting him — desperate to reach out but scared of learning that he had fallen head-over-heels in love with someone else.
Not that I didn’t want him to fall in love but I didn’t need to know.
I could only surrender and allow whatever to be.
He had another life to live. Yet, for me, only the universe could choose to bring me something as beautiful and delicious as it had brought when Jamie walked into my life.
In the beginning, surprisingly, I was able to forget about him and move on with my life.
I knew that, despite sacrificing what had begun to blossom with him, I was choosing myself — the simplicity of my life and everything that I wanted for me. Choosing this made me happy — not to be distracted by someone who would potentially take my attention and energy away from building my dreams right here where my home and my family are.
And so, onward I went in life and it felt good, in a sad kind of a way.
But then the distractions of the spring and summer seasons began to ebb away and the void Jamie left began to show itself.
I wondered where he had ended up. Had he moved his life away from Devon and begun anew elsewhere? Had he returned to London, hungry for what he previously knew and loved?
The more I wondered about him, the more I noticed how suffocating was the lack of fresh stimulation. I could wander in my beloved nature and get lost in my dreams, but I couldn’t force excitement into my life.
As I realised how much of my life I was now giving to help others, reserving little indulgence for myself, I began to crave something more, and Jamie became the symbol of everything that I desired and deserved as a woman. Not as a mother, sister, or member of this construction we call society. Simply as a woman who deserves love, partnership, and simple joy.
But I had cut ties and had no way to even reach out to learn of his life since we said goodbye.
The months have passed since then. Occasionally, I have taken walks in the very same place that we first met, close to where his mother lives, but have seen neither hide nor hair of him.
Of course, the chances of ever bumping into him again are slim and I begin to question whether I made a mistake.
I find myself replaying in my mind what could have been, or should have been. Wondering if I made a stupid, short-sighted decision.
Yet, I know that, in a strange way, what has been preserved from our few weeks spent in one another’s company is something precious and unique. And, while it lives in my memory as such, it can never be tainted, as so many love stories become.
I can think of him and remember his kind and gentle gaze, his enjoyment of hearing my voice and attentively listening to me speak, his gratitude at me giving him the same undivided attention, and how he noticed every little gesture and acknowledged it.
It may have never become the fully-fledged love story with a satisfactory ending to boot, but it is its own love story, nonetheless. Perfectly preserved in a special rose-tinted compartment in my memory.
And, maybe, if an ending were to be written one day…well, that’s for greater forces than me to decide.