Rivals united by love...

Last weekend I ran into a woman that I know. I greeted her with a warm greeting--a hug and a smile. We shared pleasantries and stories. I introduced her to my friend. By all appearances, she and I looked like friends. But we’re not.

If politics makes strange bedfellows, affairs of the heart create unlikely connections. This woman and I know each another because we both loved the same man, at different points in time. Truthfully, some of those points overlapped. However, there’s really no point in discussing that. It was long ago, but each of us loved him deeply. And that love changed both of our lives.

That shared love that binds us. It is that love that gives us a familiarity with one another that is somewhat unnatural. We haven’t lived in the same city and we haven’t met that many times. To be sure, we have other things in common. Although we have different looks, we both are attractive enough to be classified as “pretty girls”. We are both professionals. We both relocated to the same city, albeit at different times. And, we share some of the same friends.

Clearly, we are similar. Under different circumstances, we would have likely become friends.

However, as much as we are bound by our common love, we are divided by it. While both of us are over him, we have yet to commit to our true loves. So even if we don’t necessarily long for him, we long for the type of connection that makes you forget about the past. And I imagine that the longing makes us both remember...

So, we are both betwixt and between while we wonder what might have been. Accordingly, we share a common respect, but will never share a friendship.
Seeing her reminded me about the complexities of human relationships. Exploring those complexities are one of the reasons that I started this blog. The thing about exploring is that you never know what you might discover…