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Something about the rain always makes me feel meloncholic. may be it's the way everything suddenly turns grey. Just last night, the plants esp. the leaves" (hehehe) and the city lights outside my friend's car --- let me correct that, the fabulous leaves and the city lights outide chad's car --- was filled with color. The grass had finally turned awesome green, no longer dusty from long summer days. The bromeliads were out in full regalia, and the white blossoms were all at attention. And then, The rain came down, and washed all the colors away.
These grey days come with their own sense of ritual. Gone are shades, sexy tank tops, interesting flip flops, seasonal white trousers, the lingering iced coffee dates in air-conditioned coffee shops, and conversations about plans and dreams and all the things that can possibly be. possibilities seem part of the spirit of summer. Instead, we have raincoats, umbrellas, vitamin C, rubber shoes, seaming tea in the same cooffee shops, and this time, conversations about all the could have been, but can no longer be. Regret and reminiscences seem part of the spirit of the rainy season.

It is in this kind of weather that met up with "The One Who Got Away." You know who I'm talking about, right? The one we could have married; the one that could have lasted forever; the one you thought was the one. (The people who love us sometimes call him "the mistake," or "The proof of God's mercy.") We all have, hopefully, one of those lying around in our memory banks.

We had planned to meet for some time because I was in the area and had something to give back to him. Before I had to meet him, I stood in front of the mirror, and found myself curling my eyelashes. I knew why I was curling my eyelashes: more than anyhing, I wanted to look beautiful; I wanted him to sigh at the end of the day and whisper to himself, "There's the one who got away." As I curled the eyelashes om my right eye, I wondered: "Why would I want him to think i have gotten away? After all, wasn't I infinitely grateful that i had gotten away?" And as I curled the eyelashes on my left eye, I wondered, "And why would I think he had gone away? After all, It would never, ever have worked."

I live and function in a relationship that is, by all definition, beautiful. I have meaningful commitments and wonderful relationships. It is almost brazen to want more out of life. And yet, these rainy days, "more" looks quite appealing. I go back to my old love stories and recall how i felt when i was younger and in love. An old song comes to me: "I remember the boy, but i don't remember the feeling anymore." In my situation, it all seems reversed. I don't remember the boy, but i remember (and miss) the feeling more and more.

I remember my elementary years --- writer's guild. They asked me to talk about how they could write creative nonfiction. I said yes, because i really love writting, and I love helping people articulate themselves through writing.I talkes about how important the activity of "wondering" is. and blablabla.... The experience tells me that this particular wondering might be a human need, a need to mythologize the one who got away.

Myths are actually ordinary stories that have happened to us. They become elevated into a myth because they remain in our memory in spite the passage of time. They become repeated in conversation. They become myths because they explain why we are what we are. Think of what stories get repeated at your family reunions. Aren't the most repeated atories also the most fantastic(One of our family stories includes a lolo who can disappear from family albums!) They beacome myths by the way we embroider the original story to make it look more like fiction than fact.

In fact, The One Who Got Away was a first-class jerk who broke my heart because he never saw the real me. In myth, The One Who Got Away suffered when he lost me. In myth, he was not really a jerk but rather than a lost soul afraid to love me. In myth, the truth becomes easy to live with.

More interestingly, I have come to the conclusion that we keep the myth of The One Who Got Away, not because we want to run away from the one we are with, but rather because --- and i need you to hang on to your chair before i say this --- because we are afraid of losing our youth. This myth should actually be called the eternal foundation of youth.

In the story of what-might-have-been, we are eternally young. We never age in these stories when we tell them. In the story we have chosen to be in, we have become sons and daughters, workers, students and real people. We have become grown up and, even worse, we have become our parents. In the myth, however we are frozen in time, and the recklessness and possibility of wonder and excitement forever exist. Oh, in the past, in the imagines past, the possibilities remain endless. (Just look at what happens to the world when they tell us stories about their old loves!) We keep this myth and trot it out every once in a while, not because we are in love with someone in the past and regret our choices (although that does happen); but rather we are in love with our selves in the past where we elude aging. It is the old me that i wish to revisit.

If this in any way resonates with you, let us all wish together for the rain to go away quickly and clear all our fantasies away.