We’ll always have that time we went to Pizza Hut…

What is it about the idea of the One That Got Away that takes on an almost mythical quality? What is behind this designation, this significance, this honor we give to one individual from our past? It’s as if we’re crowning a royal, giving this person dominion over our history.

When I think about my own OTGA through the eyes of reality, we never really had a chance. He was a devout Mormon and I was…not. Yet in my memory, our time together was filled with such sweetness, such possibility, that my life without him seems slightly less golden.

He got married several years ago, but his face still appears in my dreams as a powerful symbol of love lost. Last night, I dreamt he was my cubicle mate at a desk job and the longing I felt for him was so distracting, I went to my boss and asked her to move me to a new cubicle. But in a twist worthy of daytime soaps, my OTGA revealed that he’d gotten married to this boss over Christmas break. Shocked and anguished, my half-hearted congratulations to them revealed all of my true emotions.

Yeah, I have sappy dreams. And maybe I place too much weight on a person I knew over 20 years ago. But perhaps we create these myths as self-cautionary tales. Life can be unpredictable, so take your chances while you still can. Because I know the next time I feel that way about someone, I’m not letting him get away.