I really hope you don’t have a story about the one that got away. Losing love is painful and can scar you for a lifetime if you’re not careful. Trust me, I’ve been there. I’ve lost a love that I can’t get back. One of my main goals in life is to live without regrets. Well, when I lost this love, I gained a regret so large that I’m still not sure I’ll ever fully recover from.

It happened shortly after I graduated high school. I was a lost child, working in the service industry, waiting tables to pay for my evening adventures, which at that time was seven days a week. One night at a bar, a girl who was everything my dream girl should have been approached me. She was beautiful, talented and so full of life that the world goes silent around me when I’m with her. We were both on destructive paths. Mine led me to drinking, drugs, all-night parties and casual flings with women. Her path was far more dangerous. She was headed straight for me.

We were together for the better part of three years. She was just entering university and I moved down to live near her, in large so I could return to school and brush up on my grades. I had found a career path I was ready and willing to take. Too bad I still had a lot of learning to do as far as love was concerned. Despite my proximity to her, I was anything but a good boy. I broke up with her halfway through that year and tried to live the single life. It was the best move I could make – and the best move for her. If only I had of done it sooner, I may have kept her love, in some form, for the rest of my life.

"If you end up with lost love, it may be a wound that never closes."

A year after we broke up, she found out about all of my indiscretions. She called me sobbing on the phone and I was in no place to deny any of it. She was a good girl and didn’t deserve the heartache that I caused her and to this day I can’t get over it. Thankfully we’ve reconnected. She’s married now, although I don’t think happily. Everyone I speak with says she still loves me and I know I still love her. But the love that we used to share is lost forever. That is something I’ll never truly be able to look myself in the mirror over.

If you have a story about a romance that wrecked itself, I’m truly sorry. If you haven’t, do everything in your power to keep it alive. Our interactions with people are what matter most in this world. If you end up with lost love, it may be a wound that never closes. And I’m sure it will be the biggest regret of a life that was supposed to have been lived without one.