The One Who Got Away

The one love of my life got married two months ago. How I came to find out, just now, is a funny (read heart-wrenching) story.

I'm home alone after M stood me up and my roommate is out with her new boyfriend. I decided take a break from my Netflix streaming marathon of The Secret Life of the American Teenager after the protagonist got married. One more episode about a bunch of teenagers deciding whether or not to have sex was going to be too depressing to my 34-year-old virgin self, so I decieded to switch to something a little more adult. I started Season 1, Episode 1, of Ally McBeal, which has been sitting dormant in my queue forever. I'd seen a couple episodes here and there in the past but I just wasn't ready to commit. Tonight, however seemed like just the right time as I'm mature, alone, and working on my career. I assumed (correctly) that Ally and I would have a lot in common.

For those of you who have never seen the show, it opens with Ally starting work at the same firm has her childhood / high school / college sweetheart whom she hadn't seen in years and who is now married. Her one true love, her "man that got away," is now staring her in the face, never having given her a good reason for their breakup. I paused the episode in the middle as I often do (I have a bit of ADD when it comes to TV) and found myself at my computer. I clicked on my inbox to find an email from American Greetings reminding me about T's upcoming birthday -- my own "one who got away."

T is one of the few men who steer clear of computers to such a degree that he typed all his poetry for class on an old manual typewriter, so when I google him I never find much. Every once in awhile I will see something related to his graduate school studies on Latin American Language and Literature, but other than that a search brings up almost nothing. Today, however, the online register of his grad school city lists him and a woman under "marriage licenses." Middle initial: check. Age: check. There is no question that this is my lost love.

Now, I don't believe in god or fate but I do believe in something writing my life story -- everyone's life stories. And today that author threw me a curve ball. How else in the world could these four things connect: 1) TV show with a wedding, 2) TV show about a lost love getting married, 3) a birthday reminder about my lost love, 4) the registry of his marriage license from just two months ago. It's been almost exactly five years to the day since I have seen T (another un-funny joke by my unknown author, I'm sure) and I still have not gotten over him. Intellectually, friendship-ly, and physically, he has remained at the solid top of my straight man connections.

Five years later I sit here being stood up in the same manner in which he used to do, by someone I don't like half as much, or at least haven't been able to get to know well enough to know for sure. Ally's voice-over claims that being a lawyer was secondary to loving Billy. She went to law school because he did. She became a lawyer by default. Her entire career is based on trying to have kept a man. Now, I didn't go to college because of boy chasing, in fact, I got divorced in order to go back to school. And I'm certainly not a writer because of chasing after a boy either. But I've often wondered how many of us professional women are what we are because we have loved and lost -- and namely the latter. In fact, Ally McBeal was such a big hit namely because us women can all identify, to varying degrees, with making life decisions based on an emotional quest.

In a way the 21st century woman has the world open to her. She can choose what roles she wants to take on, whether it be work and family, just work, or just family. But in the end I can't help noticing that we all feel a bit guilty for whatever we choose, and we are always left feeling a bit dissatisfied... a bit lost. I can't help but feel that women are currently under an intense microscope of conflicting definitions. Ally followed Billy to law school in order to keep the man she loved. I went to graduate school because the love of my life didn't want a relationship. I can't help but feel grateful that I was given the chance to pursue my dreams because of being rejected, but at the same time, like any 21st century woman, I want it all.

Episode 1 ends with the following voice over:

"The truth is, I probably don't want to be too happy or content, 'cause then what? I actually like the quest, the search. That's the fun. The more lost you are, the more you have to look forward to. What do you know? I'm having a great time and I don't even know it." - Ally