“Please, God, let him come back to me,” I prayed. “Let him realize what a mistake it was to let me go.”
Almost 40 years after he broke my heart, he spoke the words my 22-year-old heart would have given anything to hear back then.
“I’ve been keeping up on you through social media,” he began. “You’ve done well. I’ve been meaning to reach out to let you know I often think of you as the one who got away.”
His life had seemed like a fairy tale of success. But it wasn’t. Despite his successful exterior, I learned it had taken a darker turn. The day we spoke, he’d just been released from prison after serving three years for a white-collar crime he insisted was not his fault.
The words of Garth Brooks’ “Unanswered Prayers” started playing in my head as I silently thanked God for not answering the prayer my broken heart had prayed years earlier.
One of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.
If I could go back and talk to my younger self, I would offer a few words of wisdom had I known then what I know now.
Read The Signs
To be the one who got away, you have to know how to read the signs on the road that says someone is about to let you get away.
The signs are not subtle.
The refusal to give you a straight answer to your questions.
The way they look away when you try to make eye contact.
The uncomfortable laughter when you come too close to the truth that they no longer feel as they once did … and they have no intention of ever doing so again.
Stop Obsessing
Once they let you go, grieve if you must, but stop obsessing about the one you lost.
It’s needy. And needy is never sexy.
Allow yourself to daydream about what you’ve gained. Freedom is empowering. And it can inspire you to heights you haven’t yet even begun to imagine.
Be Yourself
Breathe and be.
Be the best version of yourself that you can be. Create the one that no one would even think of letting get away, the one someone else would give anything to have.
That’s what makes being the one who got away so sexy. Someone else gets to have you.
Live Your Life; Never Give Up Hope
Don’t look back, and don’t stop your life waiting for your former love to return.
“He’ll be back,” a wise friend told me as I cried in his arms one night after the breakup. My friend was right. He did come back.
But it was another person.
Let Go; The Butterfly Will Land On Your Shoulder
You’ve heard the story of how to make a butterfly land on your shoulder a million times. Stop chasing it, and it will land.
The best way to be the one who got away is to let whoever you’re hanging onto get away.
Move on.
If the person comes back, it was meant to be. If not, God has better plans for your life.
One day you’ll realize that letting them go was the best thing that could have happened to you.
And your unanswered prayer was heard and answered after all.
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