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There are moments in life pregnant with
opportunity so intriguing that, if not grasped, haunt one for a
lifetime. From time to time, memories of these lost opportunities
push their way into my consciousness and taunt me for letting them
pass. There is no certainty as to how these events would have turned
out if seized upon. It is this ignorance of the possible lost
futures which causes the mind to inflate their importance and, thus,
make them part of the mind's permanent landscape, a landscape of what
ifs that meander up life's imaginary mountains to fantastic vistas
never seen.
There was the walk in the woods at 12
years old with the girl who sat in front of me in class, the apple of
my eye, and the associated desire to hold her hand which was never
fulfilled due to my insurmountable timidness. We wandered the paths,
both blushing at the opportunity to be alone together, yet never
seizing upon it. The opportunity never came again.
Still sharp in my mind is the beautiful
Puerto Rican girl with the jet black hair and purple coat standing
before me on the Orange Line as we traveled by train from downtown
Boston to Forest Hills station. I had never before seen such a
beautiful face. Her skin was a smooth and delicious coffee color. I
was 16 and she must have been about 15. As she spoke with her
friends in Spanish, I so dearly wanted to talk with her, to give her
my telephone number, to know that this chance encounter would not be
our last, but I was too much of a coward to ask, and so the
opportunity was lost forever. Even now she crosses my mind from time
to time. I don't know what aspect of this memory cuts the deepest,
her beauty or my stupidity?
Then, at 20 years old, there was the
woman in my Linear Algebra class who worked as a magician. She
invited me onto her yacht to study. The two of us sat in a small
room, all alone, on the gently rocking boat in a marina on Boston
Harbor. She asked, "Do you want me to do a trick?" with a
gleam in her eye. I wanted to say, "I'd like to see you make
your clothes disappear," but I just blushed and didn't answer.
I thought of my girlfriend and how disappointed she would have been
if I cheated on her. Now, all these years later, I wish I had
cheated on her, not just then but dozens of times more.
At 23 I flew alone to Quebec city for
the weekend. When it was time to return and I was waiting at the
gate for a flight to Montreal a beautiful woman my own age,
accompanied by her parents, stood in line near me. She had golden
hair and wore a fur coat with long white boots. There was something
about her that drew me. We looked at each other. We stared at each
other. We smiled. I looked down, too shy to continue.
Our flight took us to Montreal. She
went one way and I went the other. I boarded a flight to Boston and
went home. The next morning, a group of friends and I drove down to
New York City for the day. We wandered about the city. Along the
way, we walked into Saint Patrick's Cathedral. I turned and there
she was. The same beautiful woman with the same two parents. We
looked at each other again, with a look of surprise. "This
can't be happening," I thought. The crowd drew us apart and I
never saw her again.
At a political meeting in Cambridge,
MA, when I was about 29 years old, a woman sat across the table from
me. I looked into her blue eyes and immediately wanted to know her
in every way a man could want to know a woman. Though we met a dozen
times more, I could never admit that I had an irresistible love for
her. I lived in denial because I was married. I lost her forever.
When I was 32 years old, I drove alone
from San Diego, California to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. At the beach
in Cabo, a tall stunningly beautiful woman with long black hair swam
to me in the water and we had a conversation. She was an attorney
visiting Cabo to help her father who was embroiled in a divorce. At
that time, I was camping near Cabo, not staying in a hotel. I had no
cell phone (it was 1993 and most people had no cell phone). I wanted
to find some way of establishing contact with her, but the words
wouldn't come. She had to go. She went.
Looking back, I wish I had had the
spontaneity to have seized each and every of these moments and the
dozens of others that I have missed. If you are young, remember
having read this the next time you feel the tug of destiny upon your
soul and embrace the moment. What have you got to lose - an eternity
of wondering and nothing more.
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