"The One That got Away": Hmmm...Does This Sound Like Bull?

Ciara, a friend of mine, sent me this. Thought I'd share it to everyone.
Credit goes to whom it is due.

People, feel free to tear this apart. My comments section are open.

My take: a great literary piece. Very catchy and well written. No wonder it became popular. The ideas of the author are clear, concise, and well-developed. A great thing to read in the office or when you're bored.

Oh, and the message? Hmmm...whatever.

The one that got away

In your life, you'll make note of a lot of people.
Ones with whom you
shared something special, ones who will always mean
something. There's the
one you first kissed, the one you first loved, the
one you lost your
virginity to, the one you put on a pedestal, the one
you're with...and the
one that got away.

Who is the one that got away? I guess it's that
person with who everything
was great, everything was perfect, but the timing
was just wrong. There
was no fault in the person, there was no flaw in the
chemistry, but the
cards just didn't fall the right way, I suppose.

I believe in the fact that ending up with someone,
finding a longtime
partner that is, does not lie merely in the other
person. I can actually
argue that an equal part, or maybe even the greater
part, has to do with
the matter of timing. It has to do with you being
ready to settle down and
commit to someone in a way that goes beyond the
little niceties of giddy
romance.

How often have you gone through it without even
realizing it? When you're
not ready to commit in that mature manner, it
doesn't matter who you're
with, it just doesn't work. Small problems become
big; inconsequentials
become dealbreakers simply because you're not ready
and it shows. It's not
that you and the person you're with are no good;
it's just that it's not
yet right, and little things become the flashpoint
of that fact.

Then one day you're ready. You really are. And when
this happens you'll be
ready to settle down with someone. He or she may not
be the most perfect,
they might not be the brightest star of romance to
ever have burned in
your life, but it'll work because you're ready.
It'll work because it's
the right time and you'll make it work. And it'll
make sense, it really
will.

So that day comes when you're finally making sense
of things, and you find
yourself to be a different person. Things are
different, your approach is
different, you finally understand who you are and
what you want, and
you've become ready because the time has truly
arrived. And mind you,
there's no telling when this day will come.
Hopefully you're single but
you could be in a long-term relationship, you could
be married with three
kids, it doesn't matter. All you know is that you've
changed, and for some
reason, the one that got away, is the first person
you think about.

You'll think about them because you'll wonder, "What
if they were here
today?" You'll wonder, "What if we were together
now, with me as I am and
not as I was?" That's what the one that got away is.
The biggest "What
if?" you'll have in your life.

If you're married, you'll just have to accept the
fact that the one that
got away, got away. Believe me, no matter how fairy
tale you think your
marriage is, this can happen to the best of us. But
hopefully you're
mature enough to realize that you're already with
the one you're with and
this is just another test of your commitment, one
which will just
strengthen your marriage when you get past it. Sure,
you'll think about
him/her every so often, but it's alright. It's never
nice to live with a
"might have been," but it happens.

Maybe the one that got away is the one who's already
married. In which
case it's the same thing. You just have to accept
and know that your
memories of that person will probably bring a nice
little smile to your
lips in the future when you're old and gray and
reminiscing.

But if neither of that is the case, then it's
different. What do you do if
it's not yet too late? Simple...find him, find her.
Because the very
existence of a "one that got away" means that you'll
always wonder, what
if you got that one?

Ask him out to coffee, ask her out to a movie, it
doesn't matter if you've
dropped in from out of nowhere. You'd be surprised,
you just might be "the
one that got away" as well for the person who is
your "the one that got
away."

You might drop in from out of nowhere and it won't
make a difference. If
the timing is finally right, it'll all just fall
into place somehow and
you know, I'm thinking, it would be a great feeling,
in the end, to be
able to say to someone, "Hey you, you're the one
that almost got away."