Some Things Just Weren’t Meant To Be

It was the summer of 2002 and I was on a train from Ljubljana, Slovenia to Vincenza, Italy.  I had just spent a week adventuring around Slovenia which included swimming to the famous church on the island in Lake Bled on a bet.  I won a beer.

Not long after the train left the station I found myself sitting with a beautiful Spanish woman.  “Hi I’m Maria, what were you doing in Ljubljana?”, she asked.

She was beautiful.  “This is going to be a good train ride” I thought to myself.

 

Right Outta The Movies

The hours flew by as Maria and I talked.  I told her about my climbing and globetrotting adventures.  She was a flight attendant for Iberia Airlines and had tons of crazy stories of adventures of her own around the world. 

I was increasingly smitten with every word out of her mouth.  The whole thing was right out of a silly movie – young American adventurer meets beautiful exotic Spanish woman on a train in Italy and falls in love. 

I was aware of the caricature of it as it was happening, but it was still happening nonetheless.  I soon found myself head over heels with this woman.  Unfortunately she had to get off the train in Venice and I had to go further to Vincenza to meet back with a friend.  We agreed to meet in Venice two days later. 

The morning I was supposed to meet her I waited and waited at the train station in Vincenza and sadly started to realize the Italians and their “whatever” sense of punctuality were going to ruin everything.  This is 2002, so cell phones were still not ubiquitous and even if I did have one it wouldn’t have worked in Europe.

It’s hard for young people to fathom this but not that long ago it was really difficult to let someone know you were going to be late, possibly very late.  I eventually got to our meeting spot in Venice well over an hour late. 

No Maria. 

I waited, I searched.  Nothing. 

I frantically went to an internet cafe and sent her an email explaining how I was sabotaged by the Italian train system. 

Nada. 

I never saw Maria again.

 

Fate Is a Cruel Thing

Go and tell your mother, go and tell your friends
You’ve been fooled again
He appeared like magic and he left you on a late night train
Yeah some things never change

– From “The Ones That You Love Lead You Nowhere“, by Del Amitri

Call it bad luck, call it fate, whatever.  Maria was there in Venice that morning and did wait for me, but gave up, thinking I stood her up.  We exchanged emails for months after I was back home.  She’d send messages from Buenos Aires, Lima, Lisbon, Santiago, and Montevideo.  She flew everywhere. 

Except the United States…  

After throwing around ideas of meeting up again in South America somewhere the email relationship started to wane, and eventually we lost touch. 

Some things just weren’t meant to be.

 

Everything Happens For A…. Oh Shut Up Already

Yeah, maybe it did happen for a reason, I don’t know.  She traveled the world on planes for a living and lived thousands of miles away from me the rare times she was home.  How could we have even started a relationship with that situation? 

Thinking about what could have been or what should have been, well, sucked.  I’m a person who tends to ruminate on things in the past and I sure did it with Maria.  Eventually I let it go and moved on, but it took a lot longer than it should have .

The “what ifs” of life tell an amazing story don’t they?  Except that story isn’t reality, and it took me a long time to learn to stop fantasizing about that story.  I have still yet to perfect this skill, but I’m working on it.

Whenever I find myself running down a “what if” rabbit hole imagining what life would have been like if X did or didn’t happen, I immediately try to bring it back to the here and now. 

I’m financially independent, healthy, barely have to work, and I have food, a bed, and running water.  Reality is still pretty darn good ‘eh?

 

Let It Go, Some Things Just Weren’t Meant To Be

That job you didn’t get.  The stock you bought that kept going down, putting you in a sunk cost trap.  That house you were outbid on.  The climb you failed to do.  That stock you didn’t buy. 

The Spanish woman from the Italian train. 

Some things are hard to let go.  But counting your blessings and having gratitude for the good in your life now helps you accept that they weren’t meant to be.

I suck at meditation, and I’m not a Buddhist.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t find value in the wisdom they preach.  There is no other time than now.  The past is gone, the future may or may not happen.  Living now means letting go.